Preliminary Bibliography

Objective: The ten-source preliminary bibliography (or working bibliography) demonstrates your ability to locate a variety of reliable sources on a research topic while following MLA guidelines for documentation and format.
Grading: The paper will be worth 100 points and serve as 5% of your overall grade. This rubric will be used to grade the paper: Preliminary Bibliography Grading Rubric
Preparation: In addition to in-class and online resources, prepare by reading:
Steps to Writing Well, Chapter 19, pp. 410-13, and Chapter 20, pp. 431-37.
Also, read Harbrace Essentials, pp. 90-91.
Paper Length: 1-1 ½ typed pages–containing ten source citations
Documentation/Style: Follow MLA guidelines for formatting your document and for creating source citations.
Title: The title represents the type of document and your research topic, for example: “Preliminary Bibliography: Oil Pipelines.”
Submission Requirements: Your paper is due on Canvas by midnight of the due date. Note that whatever you submit will be graded; therefore, double-check your submission.
Late work policy: Students may submit work up to one week after the due date. However, ten points will be deducted from your assignment grade for each day the work is late. Students with documented medical or emergency absences will be allowed to make up work within the timeframe established by the instructor and administration.
STEP 1: Read: What is the preliminary bibliography? First, it is sometimes called a working bibliography. “Bibliography” actually means a list of books, but the list includes whatever types of sources you might use in your paper–newspapers, journals, lectures, correspondence, interviews, charts, graphs, etc. Preliminary or working implies that the list is not final because research is a work in progress. For your bibliography, do not list every source that you have come across during research, you only list the TEN SOURCES that have the most potentialfor use in your paper.
That means, for an argument paper, the source may contain information about how the topic became controversial, or it may provide the differences in people’s opinions on your topic. A more reliable article may show both sides of an argument–without favoring one side over the other (bias/prejudice). You want to collect authoritative, credible support that contains facts that can be verified. This may be in the form of statistics, quotes, research findings, polls conducted, etc. Reminder: Your TRAAP evaluation improves your skills for locating sources that are Timely, Relevant, Authoritative, Accurate, and Purposeful.
A preliminary bibliography can also help you examine the breadth and depth of the research you’ve done. When you assemble all of the resources you’ve consulted into a bibliography, you are better able to answer some important questions about the scope of your research: Are there areas of your research question that you haven’t fully explored yet? Are there certain kinds of sources that you haven’t consulted that might hold new or different information about that question? Have you consulted enough recent sources on the question to provide accurate information?
For organizational purposes, the list of source citations in the bibliography are ALWAYS alphabetized (ABC order).
“Citing the source” or “making a source citation” means including information that is necessary for locating the source. The source information must be in the correct order (author, title, containers, volume and issue numbers, date, URL, etc.).
Using the author’s last name, organize the sources in alphabetical (ABC) order. If there is no author, use the first important word of the title of the article (not a, an, and the) to alphabetize the source.
For future reference: You will build your annotated bibliography from sources in this preliminary bibliography. Also, the “Works Cited” page of your research paper contains the final sources that you actually use in your paper.
STEP 2: With respect to instructor guidelines, follow this list of steps to format your document and create citations.
STEP 3: Submit your work.

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