You will choose a topic related to African American history during the time period of this course (1865 to present) for this assignment. It may be the topic you plan on doing your research paper upon, or not. If you need help in thinking up a topic, look under the Commentary link under Research Paper Topic in Course Content for some examples. You can also browse through your AA Odyssey ebook for topics. The purpose of this assignment is to evaluate both Primary & Secondary Sources AND Web sites (online sources), and determine what is acceptable and what is not for college-level academic research.

A. Annotated Webliography: 

There are several links on evaluating primary and secondary sources under Course Content in the folder- Evaluating Sources. Read over for more information.

You will search for Web sites by using a search engine of your choice (e.g., Google) to find TWO acceptable sites and ONE unacceptable site. Note that for this exercise, you may not use any of the following types of sites:

1. Wikipedia or any other wiki site

2. Sites that require subscription

There are several links on evaluating primary and secondary sources under Course Content in the folder- Evaluating Sources. Read over for more information.

Select TWO scholarly sources based on your topic. One can be a book. The other should come from a journal article.

The entries for each secondary source should include the following information:

1. Full citation of author and work

2. The name of the scholarly journal

There are several links on evaluating primary and secondary sources under Course Content in the folder- Evaluating Sources. Read over for more information.

Select TWO primary sources based on your topic. Look at your textbook Major Problems in African American History for documents as well as The African American Odyssey. There are also a number of Web sites, such as those of the Library of Congress and the National Archives, that contain digitized copies of other primary sources that you may use.

The entries for each primary source should include the following information:

1. Full citation for where you found the item

2. Type of primary source (audio, document, etc)

Provide the following for all of your sources:

1. Complete citations using Chicago Humanities Style. Go to the “Brief Primer to Citing Sources in Chicago Humanities Style (located under UMUC Resources under Course Content) for instructions. There is even an example of a Web site citation if you scroll to the bottom.

2. A brief description in which you describe each of your sources. You should show how these are related to your topic, and why it is acceptable or (in the case of at lease one website) NOT acceptable for use in an academic research paper.