How to: Research a Debate

BASICS OF CHICAGO STYLE: 

If you are unsure as to how to cite a source, check with your professor or a librarian. You can also consult the resources listed on the previous tab. 

Article - from an online journal

Author Lastname, Firstname. "Article Title." Journal Title volume, no. issue (date): pages [if available]. DOI as URL, stable URL or database name.

Fakunmoju, Sunday B. and Robert C. Kersting. "Perceived Effects of Student Loan Forgiveness on Turnover Intention Among Social Workers in Massachusetts." Social Work 61, no. 4 (2016): 331-339. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/sww051.

Article - from an online newspaper/magazine

Author Lastname, Firstname [if applicable]. "Article Title." Newspaper Title, month day, year. Stable URL or database name.

Reilly, Katie. Keyes, Sarah. "A Judge Struck Down Student Loan Forgiveness. Here's What That Means for Borrowers." Time Magazine, November 11, 2022. https://time.com/6233231/student-loan-forgiveness-blocked/. 

Blog post 
Author Lastname, Firstname [or screenname if unknown]. "Post Title." Blog Title (blog), Blog Source [if applicable], month day, year. URL.

Potter, Claire Bond. "I Want to Borrow Gobs of Money for College (Said No One Ever)." Tenured  Radical (blog). Chronicle of Higher Education, November 14, 2014. https://www.chronicle.com/blognetwork/tenuredradical/i-want-to-borrow-gobs-of-money-for-college-said-no-one-ever. 

E-book 

Author Lastname, Firstname. Book Title. Publisher, Date. E-Book Platform.

Best, Joel and Eric Best. The Student Loan Mess: How Good Intentions Created a Trillion-Dollar Problem. University of California Press, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central. 

WRITING AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Each annotation should analyze and evaluate, not just summarize, the resource you read.

 Annotations should reflect your own experience with a source – don’t rely on reviews or summaries. 

 Your annotations should address such areas as:

1. Arguments (what is the author arguing? do they do it well?);
2. Comparisons between this source and other sources you are annotating;
3. The relevance or usefulness of each source for your topic, and/or
4. Other information about the source that struck you as particularly notable or useful. 

Ideally, you should aim to cover at least a couple of these points and have ~200 words in each annotation. 

Make sure that your bibliography is in the correct style (probably MLA). This means that

1. Your citations should follow the MLA (or other style) standard for whatever type of source you are citing;
    
2. Each entry should be correctly formatted: with any second line of the citation and your annotations indented, in alphabetical order, and double-spaced if your style calls for it. 

See the handout below for more tips and a sample bibliography: 

REFWORKS CITATION MANAGER:

When conducting your research, it's important not to lose track of your sources of information! 

With RefWorks, you can import references from Holy Cross databases to create your own personal list of references and bibliographies for your papers. This will help you with formatting as well as with keeping track of all of the different sources you've drawn on for your research. 

A few RefWorks caveats and tips: 

• ALWAYS proofread your citations. RefWorks only knows what the database feeds it -- if there is anything wrong with the information in the database or other source you used, RefWorks will repeat that incorrect information. 
   
• Be aware of RefWorks' strengths and weaknesses. RefWorks works well for traditional, published sources of information. It is less accurate at recording the correct citation details and formats for things like websites and social media. 
   
• Actively curate your RefWorks library. As an initial step, you can absolutely do a quick export and walk away. But long-term, it's to your benefit to make use of folders and other organizational tools and to edit your references, to correct things like all-caps and misspellings and add relevant notes. Taking the time to do this at the front-end means that the process of converting those disparate references into a bibliography will go much more smoothly. 
   
• RefWorks will often import the author's official abstract or summary along with the citation. Be wary of this if you are using the annotated bibliographies feature, to make sure that the final bibliography includes your writing, not theirs. 

Need more help with RefWorks? You can always set up an appointment for a one-on-one "tutorial." 

You should also check out the helpful Research Guides below: