Welcome students! This discovery assignment introduces you to some of the resources offered by the Marymount Library. Learning to use the library -- to go beyond Google, your course textbook, and the professor's lecture -- supports learning and inquiry and helps you transition from high school to appropriate college-level research. Consider the librarians to be your research coaches who are here to help you make this transition.
Assignment Instructions: Now that you have completed the in-class library workshop, you have the necessary comfort level and familiarity with the library to approach this assignment. There are two parts: (1) an annotated bibliography and (2) a questionnaire. Budget for 4-5 hours of work. You will use the online library and the physical library.
Assignment Grading: This assignment is graded out of 100%. The annotated bibliography is worth 90% and the questionnaire is worth 10%.
(1) Annotated Bibliography (90% of assignment grade)
You will explore the Marymount College Library for resources relating to a major or career you are interested in pursuing (e.g. marketing, lawyer, graphic designer, translator). From these explorations, you will create an annotated bibliography of sources that helped you learn more about that major or career.
There are 22,000 books in the Marymount Library and more than 40 specialized databases (i.e. search engines) with access to hundreds of thousands of articles, videos, and images. For the annotated bibliography, you will selectively choose 5 sources and justify each choice by writing an annotation. Each source and its annotation is worth 18% of the assignment.
To begin, you must understand what is meant by an "annotated bibliography". Carefully read this guide on annotated bibliographies to get started, then download and view this sample ID117 annotated bibliography.
Your annotated bibliography should tell a story about your topic. What does that mean? Your bibliography shows:
The bibliography should demonstrate that you have been selective about the sources you have chosen.
Each source presents interesting, unique, or complementary information.
Instructions
Having trouble finding sources on your topic? You should ask a librarian for advice, because we can show you new search strategies (check out some of the questions we helped students with last year). You'll be surprised at how much is in the Library!
(2) Questionnaire (10% of assignment grade)
Follow these instructions:
Submit Your Assignment
Your submitted assignment must include a complete annotated bibliography with 5 sources, print-outs and photocopies of the sources you chose, and the questionnaire "Thanks" message. Submit your assignment for grading at the front check-out desk at the Library (or, if no one is seated there, to a librarian).