Until now, we have focused on how others have adapted scientific content for public consumption. The remaining two projects offer you the opportunity to research a scientific topic and then write about that topic for a lay audience. In Project Two, you will select a topic that you wish to write about, then create an annotated bibliography of resources related to that topic. This research will provide the basis for your final project, a custom-genre science writing project geared toward the audience of your choice. Before you begin this project, review the Project Three guidelines to ensure that your research here pays off in the final project.
A traditional annotated bibliography provides citations and short synopses (typically from 50 to 200 words each) of articles and books on a single topic. The purpose of such a bibliography is twofold: to organize and document a researcher's own study of a topic, and to inform others about the intersections among the most current and/or significant literature on that topic.
For the purposes of this assignment, you may also include resources other than than research articles and books if your topic calls for them. For instance, if you interview an expert on your topic, you may include a summary of your notes; if you consult nonscholarly material such as news articles or broadcasts, you may document these sources as well. In fact, if you were to choose a currently-hot topic (e.g., the recent hoopla over stem cell research or Mad Cow Disease), then an appropriate version of this assignment would be a well-organized "research journal" of recent news articles, media reports, and other "news archive" material about that topic.
The deliverable product of this assignment, however, should not be a stack of newspaper clippings and photocopied articles, nor should it be a series of cut-and-pasted article abstracts. Instead, you should digest the resources that you uncover, then use your annotations to show how each resource contributes to your topic.
End of Page
Last modified: