CHEM 142 - General Chemistry II - Annotated Bibliography Project: Home

Winter 2024 Topic: Vaccines

In this project, we have chosen a topic that has become controversial. It is your task to come up with questions about the topic, then research the topic to answer the proposed questions. Through your research, you will develop an annotated bibliography of sources with information that help you answer your questions. You will also learn the American Chemical Society (ACS) citation style to document these sources.

Throughout this whole process, the Clark College librarians are ready to help! This links to the custom site created for this project, to help with research and citation.

Links to an external site.

This is the beginning of a two-quarter project! The research you do and bibliography you create this term will help you further investigate and communicate about this topic in CHEM& 143. 

Overview of Assignment Components and Due Dates:

1. Library information session. Attend a library information session, by Wednesday, January 15.
2. Generate four questions for the topic. Submit these four questions by Friday, January 17.
3. Find eight sources to provide information for the four questions. Submit the citations for these eight sources by Friday, February 7.
   • Have the librarians review your citation formatting before submission.
   • This is a first attempt at the citations. We will review the citations for correctness of citation formatting.
   • Late submissions will be accepted through Sunday, Febraury 9 (48 hours), with a late penalty.
   • You should receive feedback within one week.
4. Second attempt – submit the citations for eight sources by Friday, February 21.
   • Have the librarians review them as well!
   • This is the final attempt at citation review. Any additional corrections should be made by the submission of the annotated bibliography.
   • Late submissions will be accepted through Sunday, Febraury 23 (48 hours), with a late penalty.
5. Annotated bibliography - from the four best sources, write annotated bibliography entries. Submit the annotated bibliography for the four sources by Friday, March 7.
   • Late submissions will be accepted through Monday, March 10, with a late penalty.
6. Post-project assessment quiz must be completed by Wednesday, March 12.
   • A brief quiz that asks you to reflect on the process of creating your annotated bibliography.
   • Late submissions will be accepted through Friday, March (48 hours), with a late penalty.

For this assignment, you can use the following types of sources:

• No more than one (1) web page. NOT Wikipedia!
• No more than one (1) article from an encyclopedia, and then only if the article has relevant scientific information.
  • Find recommended encyclopedia databases in the "Recommended Databases" tab.
• Articles from scientific journals, located using library databases or online search sites (such as pubmed.com).
  • It is likely that you will find articles that are not available in full text. You may use the abstract for the initial 8 sources in this assignment. Use the "Find It" feature in library databases to have the full-text of an article emailed to you. For the final four sources you MUST have the full text of the article.
  • Scientific articles can be a challenge to read. See the tab called "How to Read a Scientific Article" for help.
• Relevant, scientific books, including textbooks. Cannell Library has access to many up-to-date print books and ebooks. You can also borrow books from 38 other university and college libraries through the library catalog. See the "Introduction to Clark Libraries Catalog" tab.

The following periodicals are examples of good places to start for learning about your topic, and they may be one of your eight articles, but they should not be in your final four. Your final sources should be from more quality publications. 

• Scientific American
• Discover
• Smithsonian
• National Geographic
• "journals of opinion" such as New Yorker and Atlantic. 

If in doubt, check with your instructor. 

Question: If I find a document on a website, like a government document or a research paper, from a .gov or a .edu, that's in a separate pdf file, not the webpage itself, is it a document or a website?

Answer: For Chemistry 142, treat these are documents. They do not count as a website.

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