COM 300 Bibliographic Assignment - Irwin Mallin, IPFW Communication

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Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne Department of Communication
COM 300 – Introduction to Communication Research Methods – Spring 2009
Instructor: Irwin Mallin

Bibliographic Assignment
Due at Beginning of Class on Tuesday, March 17

There’s something about communication that made you decide to major or minor or specialize in it. You’ve probably also picked up some areas of interest in the COM courses you’ve already taken. This is your opportunity to see what the published research has to say about your area of interest within communication.

For this assignment, you’ll do an annotated bibliography of three sources – that is, three research articles – published since 1999 in scholarly journals on a question of interest to you in communication. At least two of the sources (but preferably all three) must have been published in one of the communication journals listed on page 11 of Merrigan and Huston or on pages 10-11 of the Style Manual for Communication Studies. One may be from scholarly journals not on those lists. Use the Helmke Library handout entitled Is Your Journal Scholarly? to determine whether a given periodical is a scholarly journal.

Picking the question

Think of the topic as a question about some aspect of communication that you would like answered. So start by asking yourself what aspects of communication or communication situations you find particularly problematic or interesting. Then frame that as a focused, specific question. You will use this question and the articles you use here for later assignments in the course.

Preparing the annotated bibliography

• Prepare the annotations following the instructions for an annotated bibliography on pages 25 and 26 of the Style Manual for Communication Studies and the format of the sample annotated bibliography on pages 81-87 of the Style Manual.
• Write extended abstracts for each entry of 100-200 words each. The extended abstract for each entry should contain the information called for on page 26 of the Style Manual.
• Notice that there is a list of five things to include for empirical studies and a list of four things to include for other types of articles.
• The references for the articles should be done in APA style as described on pages 60-70 of the Style Manual.
• Your finished product should be grammatically correct, free of spelling and punctuation errors. It should also be typed (double spaced, with margins of 1" all around, and a font no larger than 12) and stapled.
• Please keep a copy for yourself.

Things to avoid

• Do not choose as one of your articles a book review or editor’s introduction.
• Do not choose as one of your articles an abstract of another article, such as those appearing in Communication Abstracts.
• Do not use the abstract for an article that is provided in the article itself or by a database.
• Do not use the reference for an article provided by the database.
• This is an individual assignment. Working with others is a violation of academic integrity

Doing any of these things will result in a grade of zero for this assignment.

Hints for success for this assignment

• Make sure you do everything called for in these directions.
• Don’t put this off! Start now, take your time, and use the services of the Writing Center in Kettler G19 if you need to.
• You are invited to show me a draft or discuss potential paper topics in office hours or by appointment.

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