In addition to the above general education objectives, this assignment assesses students’ understanding and application of the following skills and knowledge specific to Western Civilization

Demonstrate the ability to think critically about Western Civilization.

Explain how the sources you identify in your bibliography would be used in a research paper.

Synthesize information from sources to construct a historical argument that is based on the logical presentation of specific historical facts and that analyzes the causal factors of a historical event or process.

Assess the relevance and credibility of your sources to evaluate whether they should be included in your bibliography.

Reflect on what you have learned by doing the assignment in the context of professional ethics.

ASSIGNMENT:

For this assignment you will research an assigned topic using the World Wide Web and CCBC library databases, construct an annotated bibliography (with thesis statement) of sources for the topic, and reflect on your learning process. An annotated bibliography is a list of citations (from books, articles, documents and web sites) which contain an evaluative description of each source. Constructing an annotated bibliography requires more than just typing in a search phrase and copying the results. You must think about the topic and what you want to learn, evaluate and compare sources, and consider whether the source is appropriate and how it will support the paper’s thesis. The annotations for each source should summarize the key points and ideas raised by that author and explain that author’s overall thesis or argument. Your annotations should also contain an assessment of the usefulness and reliability of each source and point out any viewpoints or biases that shape and inform each work. Your bibliography must include at least two academically reliable secondary source web sites which have at least two pages on the topic, at least two articles of appropriate scope and academic level from the CCBC databases, and one primary source which can be found via either method. Once you have found, read, and annotated your sources, construct a preliminary thesis. Your thesis should be the answer to a question and should sum up what you have concluded about the topic.