Directions for Students:

Create an annotated webliography on <insert topic>.

Much like an annotated bibliography -- a collection of sources on a topic, arranged alphabetically by the authors' last names, with a short summary (usually several sentences) that highlights the significance of the document for the purpose of your project -- a webliography brings together as many on-line resources pertaining to a particular topic as possible.

On-line resources such as listservs, web sites, newspapers, magazines, blogs, online encyclopedias, FAQs, digital archives or graphics, multimedia (animation,  sound, video), catalogs and databases, and expert help.

Using your favorite search engine, select at least 10-20 web sites and evaluate them according to specific criteria, writing a short paragraph on each:

• Content
• Currency
• Reliability
• Bias

Try to include sites from a variety of domains:

• .com
• .org
• .edu
• .gov

In accordance with [MLA, APA, etc.] style guidelines, be sure to include the URL of each web site and the date that you consulted it.

Sample entry:

American Planning Association http://www.planning.org ( 05 July 2005)

The APA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting planning policy and research. The Web site offers valuable resources to non-members. There is an annotated list of APA publications, including Planners Press and Planners Advisory Service reports on sale in the Planners Book Service pages. A click on "Publications" takes you to a page that offers a searchable database of the APA's publications. A search on 'downtown' yielded 20-30 citations; 'revitalization' resulted in a list of publications including some on historic preservation and economic development. Summaries can be viewed. Planning magazine offers one full-text online article from each issue, and the Journal of APA gives a searchable list of citations for its classic articles, and the contents of back issues. Full-text articles from The New Planner, a newsletter written by the student members of APA, are available.

Directions for Instructors:

An annotated webliography is an ideal assignment for almost any discipline at any level. Combining the format of a traditional annotated bibliography (a collection of sources on a topic, arranged alphabetically by the authors' last names, with a short summary (usually several sentences) that highlights the significance of the document for the purpose of a project) with the convenience of online resources, the assignment teaches the student to evaluate resources that s/he would be drawn to use anyway. It bridges the gap between the research and writing processes where students often lose their footing. Studies have shown that:

• Students often have a difficult time deciding what to do with authoritative source materials once they have found them.
• Materials are not used (or documented) appropriately in the final essay.
• There is an imbalance between the language of the source material and the language (commentary) provided by the student.
• The essay reads like a "patchwork" of source materials with no real contribution from the student author.
• Problems with any of the above might lead to the impression that the student has misused or misappropriated (or sometimes, plagiarized) the source materials.

The Annotated Webliography assignment is designed, therefore, to help eliminate these problems and to help the student navigate the research process more easily and, hopefully, more enjoyably.

The "webliography" allows the student to list all sources relevant to the topic and which can be used later in a documented essay, if one is assigned. This "webliography" is then "annotated" (amended with notes, reactions, commentary) so that students can think and write critically about the source material in order to better prepare them for writing the documented essay.

In brief, the Annotated Webliography should help students become more comfortable with the research process in general. Even though it appears to add a step to the writing process, it should actually save them time in the long run, since the thinking and writing you do for this assignment can be used directly in the documented essay.

-- Adapted from “The Annotated Webliography Assignment” http://factoryschool.org/handbook/research/ann_web.html ( July 12, 2005)