Annotated Webliography

Assignment Description

What is an Annotated Webliography?

An annotated webliography is very similar to an annotated bibliography which you completed in Week 4 of this course. Instead of reviewing and analyzing books and articles, this assignment requires students to review websites pertaining to a particular topic. Each website description will follow a similar format as your annotated bibliography. Websites will be evaluated for content, accuracy, bias, relevance, and significance to your chosen topic. 

There is a great deal of information available on the internet and you can do a lot of research from your computer. However, not everything on the web is acceptable for academic research. This assignment will help you evaluate sites that you find on the free web.

Before you start your paper, please make sure to read the UMGC Library guidelines for evaluating web resources to help determine whether the contents are of high quality and acceptable for use in a college-level history research paper:  /websiteevaluation_tutorial.cfm.

Assignment Instructions

For this assignment, you will search for five (5) websites that are acceptable for use in a college-level history research paper. UMGC library databases (for example JSTOR or other journal databases), Wikipedia, History.com or any other encyclopedia or wiki-type site like about.com are NOT acceptable, sites that require a subscription are additionally NOT acceptable. Write a paragraph for each website (five total approximately 200-250 words each) in which you describe the contents of each website in detail, and why you think the site is acceptable for use in an academic research paper, using the information you collected from your evaluation of the site.

Complete the following for your annotated webliography:

Provide a complete citation (as you would include it in your bibliography) for the site, including the URL and your date of access. Note that the required style for this class is Chicago Manual of Style.

For an example of what elements to include in your citation, go to /chicago_examples.cfm and click on Web Sites.  You can also click on Course Resources, click on Webliography, and find examples of how to properly cite websites using the Chicago Manual of Style.

Use the evaluation criteria provided by UMGC Information and Library Services https://www.umgc.edu/current-students/learning-resources/writing-center/writing-resources/evaluating-sources.cfm to determine if the site is appropriate for college-level academic research (i.e. a college-level history research paper).

Additionally, some websites are not considered suitable for college-level research, please find a list of the most common websites that are unacceptable for college-level work:

LIST OF UNACCEPTABLE WEB RESOURCES:   AVOID THESE WEB SITES For Your Webliography and For Discussion.

• For profit, commercialized sites that sell advertisements;
• Private web resources were you can find nothing substantive about the author or the political philosophy or the private funding source;
• The History Channel or any A&E Television material;
• History.com or the Independence Hall Association  (for profit)
• Encyclopedia.com:  it is a commercialized site that “uses” information from accredited sources.  Go to the UMGC Library and ask the Librarian to help you find the relevant Oxford Companion to Historyseries.
• Britannica.com:  See above.  It sells ads and “uses” information from other sources.
• About.com:  not professional; commercialized;
• History.org:  a commercialized site;
• HistoryNet.com:  sells magazines;
• YouTube, “home-made videos.”  If the video comes from a scholarly source, it is acceptable.
• Alpha History. 

Sometimes people confuse a web address with being the same as a website. This is not the case. Articles from journals or websites are NOT websites.  Make sure you are clear as to what a website is. For example, msn.com, yahoo.com, or bbc.com are websites. Any article contained within them are not websites.

If your topic is contained within a part of the website then you must still evaluate the website as a whole for its suitability for use in a college level history research paper.  You will find a sample Annotated Webliography in the module labeled “Sample Assignments.”  Do not use the websites from the sample assignment.