Effective Use of Heavy Rail and Minimization of Traffic Congestion in Atlanta, Georgia

Literature review/annotated bibliography

Your final literature review will have a minimum of 8 academic resources (academic books and scholarly journal articles)

Library-based papers must have at least 8-15 different citations in the text from academic sources ( peer-reviewed journal articles, books). Papers that are based on observation or data-gathering must contain at least eight different citations of scholarly publications in addition to presentation of data or statistics (often these citations will be references to prior research, theory, or methods that inform the data-gathering project). Papers composed solely of data or observations without analysis or conceptual organization are unacceptable (e.g., journals or logs).

A literature review demonstrates what has been published in a particular subject area, in an organized format that offers a both summary and synthesis of the works cited. So, you are in essence, reviewing the literature and telling the reader what you discovered, but offering a synthesis (reorganizing/reshuffling) that demonstrates why this knowledge is relevant and helpful to an understanding of your research project. So, while you might trace the intellectual progression of the scholarship on an urban issue (addressing any major debates that have existed), you are also advising the reader on what is most pertinent in relation to your work.

This will:

• Lead reader through the topic areas you explored
• Clearly define terms
• Establish history of thought
• Help reader understand the relevance--to urban scholarship in general--to your study

Why should I write an annotated bibliography?

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/01/

To learn about your topic! Writing an annotated bibliography is excellent preparation for a research project. Just collecting sources for a bibliography is useful, but when you have to write annotations for each source, you're forced to read each source more carefully. You begin to read more critically instead of just collecting information. At the professional level, annotated bibliographies allow you to see what has been done in the literature and where your own research or scholarship can fit. Writing an annotated bibliography can help you gain a good perspective on what is being said about your topic. By reading and responding to a variety of sources on a topic, you'll start to see what the issues are, what people are arguing about, and you'll then be able to develop your own point of view.

You can focus your annotations for your own needs. A few sentences of general summary followed by several sentences of how you can fit the work into your larger paper or project can serve you well when you go to draft.

What is an Annotated Bibliography?

Source: http://guides.library.cornell.edu/annotatedbibliography

An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a brief (approximately 150-word) descriptive and evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited.

Annotations vs. Abstracts:

Abstracts are the purely descriptive summaries often found at the beginning of scholarly journal articles or in periodical indexes. Annotations are descriptive and critical; they expose the author's point of view, clarity and appropriateness of expression, and authority.

The Process:

• Locate books, periodicals, and documents that may contain useful information and ideas on your topic.
• Briefly examine and review the actual items.
• Choose those works that provide a variety of perspectives on your topic.
• Cite the book, article, or document using the appropriate style.
• Write a concise annotation that summarizes the central theme and scope of the book or article. Include one or more sentences that
  • evaluate the authority or background of the author,
  • comment on the intended audience,
  • compare or contrast this work with another you have cited, or
  • explain how this work illuminates your bibliography topic.

Sample Annotated Bibliography for a Journal Article:

The following example uses the Chicago 16 for the journal citation:

Johnson, William R. and Jonathan Skinner. 1986. “Labor Supply and Martial Separation.” The American Economic Review 76:455-469.