The Working Bibliography
The Working Bibliography
A working bibliography is a list of potential sources for a paper. It may include books, articles, websites, interviews, videos, etc. For this class, it should include at least 10 items. It is not necessary to read a source completely to put it in your working bibliography, but you should skim it enough to tell whether it has value for your project. The working bibliography is formatted the same as a works cited page.
Note: If you learned about MLA formatting a few years ago, things have changed a bit because the Modern Language Association has updated their guidelines. Be sure to check the resources in this lesson and make note of the changes.
A working bibliography is a “working” document in two ways. First, it will change throughout the research process—expanding each time you add a potentially useful source and contracting when you omit sources that turn out to be less relevant than you anticipated. Second, once you have written your essay, your working bibliography will evolve one last time, becoming your list of works cited.
Of the 10 items you collect:
- two (2) items must be scholarly articles from the library databases (one of these items should reflect research from a country other than the United States)
- one (1) item must be from a newspaper
- two(2) items must be websites that are suitable for research
- one (1) item must be a book
- one (1) item must be someone you could interview
- one (1) item must be a film or documentary
The other two items can be from any source that will help you understand your topic or answer the questions you have. You can include pamphlets, brochures, films, interviews, and other sources that you uncover as you poke around.
Be sure to keep in mind the pointers for evaluating sources that you read about in previous topics. Try for a variety of sources and points of view. You may use websites, including those you identified in previous topics, and you may use articles from the library databases, including those you used in earlier exercises. If you find a good source in the databases, the keywords and bibliography associated with that source will help you find more sources.
Books related to your topic can be either from the Sinclair catalog or OhioLINK. (See the Sinclair Library Website for more information on OhioLINK and how to contact the librarians if you need help with any aspect of the research project.) You can order books from OhioLink for free and have them delivered to you at any convenient OhioLink library. If you find a source that is particularly relevant to your research, you can use the bibliography from that source to find more relevant sources. You can also use the keywords from the article to help you find more relevant sources. If you see several of your sources referring to the same expert or article, find that source too. Repeated references to the same source often indicate that the source is reliable.
Use MLA format for the final draft of the working bibliography. Use your textbook and the library MLA Guide carefully as a reference for this. I will send corrections when I review your working bibliography, but you need to learn how to find correct formats yourself or if you use Word you can use the Reference tab to enter information, and Word will format the bibliography for you. There are also several other tools online that will format your papers, but some are better than others, and so I will let you discover those on your own. No matter how you decide to put the Working Bibliography together, be sure to double check the formatting before you submit it. Correct formatting is an important factor in the grade for this assignment.
When you finish typing all the bibliographic entries for your Working Bibliography, be sure that you have a hanging indent and that you double space evenly throughout. Here’s how to do those two things in Word:
Complete the bibliography and make sure everything is alphabetized. Then, highlight all the entries (but not Works Cited). At the top of the document you will see a box that says “Home” and then select “Paragraph” — if you are using an Apple computer, the paragraph selection will be under “Format” which is also found at the top of the document. Select Paragraph and click on the drop down link under the word “special”. Select “hanging”. While you are there, click on the drop down menu for “spacing” and select “double”. Then click “okay”. The working bibliography/works cited page should now be formatted with a hanging indent, and it should be double spaced without any extra spacing between the individual citations.
Here’s a presentation that walks you through setting up the MLA heading, page numbers, and the hanging indent.
Click here to see a Working Bibliography Formatted Correctly. Once you finish your Working Bibliography, submit it in the Working Bibliography Drop Box.
Use the following coupon code :
BRIGHT
The post The Working Bibliography appeared first on BrightMindEssays.
The post The Working Bibliography appeared first on Recommended.
-
- Assignment status: Resolved by our Writing Team
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home