Blog 1
Hello, everybody! I am looking forward to blogging and reading everyone else's blogs throughout these next five weeks! To preface, I read all of these articles in the fall, and I may occasionally make comparisons or references to my original blogs. I just wanted to let you know to avoid confusion when reading some of my posts. Without further ado, here we go!
Barzun
Well, I did not miss this. While this article (and many ones to follow) are drier than the Sahara Desert, they are valuable, relevant tools that will serve as reminders and guidelines for us as we tackle the 5-week gauntlet of academia. When reading through the article, it seems that the ideas of constantly checking the validity and reliability of sources are common knowledge. Yet, when I am overwhelmed with assignments and other duties, I tend to forget many of these ideas. Here is an example:
Barzun mentions the act of suddenly stopping when writing a novel; I find this action problematic. From what I have seen, an author will complete their work when they feel that there is no more that can possibly be done to finalize it. It seems wrong for an author to abruptly finish a work in order to meet a word count or page requirement, yet it happens. It certainly has for me, and usually it happens when I am overwhelmed with work and am unable to stay on top of things. Most of these situations are self-inflicted, so this article serves as a personal reminder to stay on top of my work and thoroughly examine everything from start to finish. As long as I scale my bibliography appropriately so that I am not worrying about too much/little information, I will feel confident in succeeding in this class.
Knott
I like how this template is organized; it gives a definition of an annotated bibliography, it outlines how to select and analyze sources, and it gives examples of both basic and detailed annotations. One of Knott's comments that relates to my issues with research is selecting appropriate sources. In previous annotated bibliographies in my undergraduate studies, I searched for any sources I could find, not paying attention to whether they were articles, dissertations, etc. When I did that, I would spread myself too thin, and I would often drift away from my main topic. That often resulted in me picking very poor-quality sources as well. This section of the article serves as a reminder for me to choose a select amount of valid and reliable sources for my project.
I also found the list of verbs at the end of the article to be really helpful. I have struggled in the past with word choice, often sounding redundant by repeating phrases such as, "The author states..." and "He/She argues that..." With 50-100 sources to work with for our assignment, repeating those phrases will get old very fast (for both the writer and the reader). I plan on keeping that verb list nearby as I progress on my bibliography.
U of Toledo
The University of Toledo's template goes more in-depth with the contents of an annotation. I find it interesting that while eight elements of an annotation are listed in this template (Knott's had three), the annotations themselves are only a single paragraph. Another statement in the example mentions, "Typically annotations do not exceed 150-200 words..." (p.1). Two-hundred words fill up quickly, especially when analyzing and reacting to the sources. I assume that the creator of this template is emphasizing the importance of being concise while presenting lots of information at the same time. Like all aspects of research, being simultaneously concise and detailed is something that takes time and repeated practice to improve upon. I will be focusing on making those improvements throughout these next five weeks onward.
Additional Questions
In regards to possibilities for my annotated bibliography, I am particularly interested in beginning band pedagogy. More specifically, I have always been interested in the choice of when to start beginning students on French Horn. I have multiple colleagues and friends who have either started students on french horn in elementary or middle school. I have also been told of people who have waited until high school to either start or switch over students to French Horn. While I have my personal preferences, I want to study and see if there is any potential benefit/harm of starting students on French Horn at a specific age/grade level. I want to be as objective as possible while researching this. Throwing personal bias out the window for the sake of research may lead me to new ideas that I had never thought of before.
Being the only student in the class who has not had a full-time teaching position, I might find it difficult to relate to peers during some of the discussions. While I did teach privately for a year prior to graduate school, I likely have not experienced many of the same issues and triumphs as other students in the class. Rather than getting discouraged about that, I am actually very excited to hear about everyone's teaching experiences. When I originally took this course, I was combined with a multitude of performance and conducting majors who had different concerns and focuses for their projects. They also used MLA format, which made the class split up when discussing formatting issues on their assignments. Being in a class entirely comprised of Ed. majors prevents that divide and can be beneficial when working on assignments. With that being said, I am very excited to re-take this course (not sarcasm) and work with other education majors this Summer.
That's about it for me this time. I look forward to reading everyone's blogs and learning what you all find (or not find) valuable and interesting. Until next time!
Barzun
Well, I did not miss this. While this article (and many ones to follow) are drier than the Sahara Desert, they are valuable, relevant tools that will serve as reminders and guidelines for us as we tackle the 5-week gauntlet of academia. When reading through the article, it seems that the ideas of constantly checking the validity and reliability of sources are common knowledge. Yet, when I am overwhelmed with assignments and other duties, I tend to forget many of these ideas. Here is an example:
Barzun mentions the act of suddenly stopping when writing a novel; I find this action problematic. From what I have seen, an author will complete their work when they feel that there is no more that can possibly be done to finalize it. It seems wrong for an author to abruptly finish a work in order to meet a word count or page requirement, yet it happens. It certainly has for me, and usually it happens when I am overwhelmed with work and am unable to stay on top of things. Most of these situations are self-inflicted, so this article serves as a personal reminder to stay on top of my work and thoroughly examine everything from start to finish. As long as I scale my bibliography appropriately so that I am not worrying about too much/little information, I will feel confident in succeeding in this class.
Knott
I like how this template is organized; it gives a definition of an annotated bibliography, it outlines how to select and analyze sources, and it gives examples of both basic and detailed annotations. One of Knott's comments that relates to my issues with research is selecting appropriate sources. In previous annotated bibliographies in my undergraduate studies, I searched for any sources I could find, not paying attention to whether they were articles, dissertations, etc. When I did that, I would spread myself too thin, and I would often drift away from my main topic. That often resulted in me picking very poor-quality sources as well. This section of the article serves as a reminder for me to choose a select amount of valid and reliable sources for my project.
I also found the list of verbs at the end of the article to be really helpful. I have struggled in the past with word choice, often sounding redundant by repeating phrases such as, "The author states..." and "He/She argues that..." With 50-100 sources to work with for our assignment, repeating those phrases will get old very fast (for both the writer and the reader). I plan on keeping that verb list nearby as I progress on my bibliography.
U of Toledo
The University of Toledo's template goes more in-depth with the contents of an annotation. I find it interesting that while eight elements of an annotation are listed in this template (Knott's had three), the annotations themselves are only a single paragraph. Another statement in the example mentions, "Typically annotations do not exceed 150-200 words..." (p.1). Two-hundred words fill up quickly, especially when analyzing and reacting to the sources. I assume that the creator of this template is emphasizing the importance of being concise while presenting lots of information at the same time. Like all aspects of research, being simultaneously concise and detailed is something that takes time and repeated practice to improve upon. I will be focusing on making those improvements throughout these next five weeks onward.
Additional Questions
In regards to possibilities for my annotated bibliography, I am particularly interested in beginning band pedagogy. More specifically, I have always been interested in the choice of when to start beginning students on French Horn. I have multiple colleagues and friends who have either started students on french horn in elementary or middle school. I have also been told of people who have waited until high school to either start or switch over students to French Horn. While I have my personal preferences, I want to study and see if there is any potential benefit/harm of starting students on French Horn at a specific age/grade level. I want to be as objective as possible while researching this. Throwing personal bias out the window for the sake of research may lead me to new ideas that I had never thought of before.
Being the only student in the class who has not had a full-time teaching position, I might find it difficult to relate to peers during some of the discussions. While I did teach privately for a year prior to graduate school, I likely have not experienced many of the same issues and triumphs as other students in the class. Rather than getting discouraged about that, I am actually very excited to hear about everyone's teaching experiences. When I originally took this course, I was combined with a multitude of performance and conducting majors who had different concerns and focuses for their projects. They also used MLA format, which made the class split up when discussing formatting issues on their assignments. Being in a class entirely comprised of Ed. majors prevents that divide and can be beneficial when working on assignments. With that being said, I am very excited to re-take this course (not sarcasm) and work with other education majors this Summer.
That's about it for me this time. I look forward to reading everyone's blogs and learning what you all find (or not find) valuable and interesting. Until next time!
Comments
Post a Comment