Demonstrate your critical reading of sources, articulate their relevance to your research assignment, and advance your information literacy – the ability to recognize when you need information, identify the kinds of information you need, and then locate, evaluate, and utilize that information accordingly.
Step 1: Critically Read (or Watch) Your Sources
- Go to https://library.nwacc.edu/noodletoolsLinks to an external site. and navigate to your Research project. You should already have found at least five credible, relevant sources for your Works Cited page assignment previously and entered them into your Research project.
- With the goal of fully understanding and being able to evaluate the quality and possible biases of the text, read (or watch, if it’s a video) each of your sources. You’ll likely find it easier to write annotations if you take notes as you read/watch.
Step 2: Compose Annotations
- For each source, compose a quality and thoughtful annotation in NoodleTools (see screenshot below) that follows the guidelines established by NWACC’s library annotated bibliography guidelines.
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Links to an external site. Each annotation should have a:
- Summary of the source: What are the key points made by this source?
- Evaluation of the source: What makes this a quality source?
- Use for the source: How might you use this source in your paper?
- For an article, book chapter, poll, interview, or survey, aim for about 200 words per annotation. For a longer source (single-author book or longer video), aim for about 300 words per annotation.
Step 3: Export to Word & Submit
- Export your five sources’ citations and annotations from NoodleTools to Microsoft Word (just like you did in your Works Cited assignment). Your file will download to your computer’s “downloads” folder – open it once downloaded.
- Double check that the document is formatted correctly for MLA 9 style and contains the annotations for each of your sources beneath their corresponding citations.
