NVCC Facts and Opinions in Biology Degree Paper

Short Assignment #2: Annotated Bibliography (due by midnight on Friday, March 3, 2023)
In John Corvinoàpiece, he mentions that he Googled ¡cts vs. opinions4o find out what the
ôandard explanation/f this distinction might be: he cautions, however, that, (is is not
how to conduct serious . . . research, but it can be a useful way of gauging common thoughts
on a subject. hat if we do want to conduct årious . . . research/n this topic, how would
we proceed?
There are two main aspects of conducting research on a topic that I want you to work on here:
first, varying search terms, and, second, using multiple research tools and resources. Your task
will be to begin to construct a bibliography of scholarship on the fact/opinion distinction, the
fact/value distinction, the descriptive/evaluative distinction (and related topics)specially as
such issues might operate in your own discipline.
Regarding search terms, I¥ just mentioned some variant terms related to the fact/opinion
distinction that have come up in our readings¡mely, the fact/value distinction and the
distinction between descriptive claims and evaluative claims. What are some other terms that
might be useful as search queries to find material germane to thinking about these concepts
and distinctions: beliefs? prejudices? thick concepts? These are all also from our readingsnd
this is, of course, one way that we enrich our search strategy, by taking stock of other terms
that are related to or appear in conjunction with the topics we are most centrally researching.
In effect, you generate a ïrd cloud/f relevant terms that you can use to try to discover
relevant scholarshipnd to expand your awareness of related scholarship. We already have,
at this point, a much richer constellation of related terms than just the bare ¡cts vs. opinions£ontrast that Corvino was searching. You should keep track of the terms you¥ searched and
should think about combinations of terms that might help narrow or refine a search.
In terms of research tools and resources, there is Google, or other internet search engines, of
course. But such a general search of the internet, while useful, requires us to sift through a
mass of material to identify the genuinely scholarly items. What more specifically scholarly
resources and tools are you familiar with? I list here a few key resources that you should make
use of:
A. Encyclopedias / Reference Works
xford Reference (go to Databases page of GMU Libraries > search for øford
Referencez this is an online collection of 300+ Oxford University Press dictionaries and
reference works
ther reference sources?
B. Full-text Databases

STOR (go to Databases page of GMU Libraries > search for “TORz contains full runs
of hundreds of academic journals and, now, many scholarly books as well.
ther full-text databases?
C. Bibliographic Databases
BSCO (go to Databases page of GMU Libraries > search for bsco select any of the
EBSCO hosted databases: on the search page, click on ålect databases!nd click on
ll now you will be searching across all the EBSCOhost databases)
orldCat (go to Databases page of GMU Libraries > search for ïrldCatJ oogle Scholar (https://scholar.google.com)
ther bibliographic databases?
Use the five resources listed here to find at least 12 scholarly items (articles, book chapters,
dissertations, books, etc.) on the fact/opinion distinction, the fact/value distinction, the
distinction between descriptive claims and evaluative claims and other related topics that you
think might help you to think about these issues, especially in relation to how they might
figure in your discipline. (Your final paper will be on some aspect of these issues in relation to
your discipline.) You should have at least one item citation that was found from each of the five
resources listed here. Each citation entry should be in MLA style, should include an abstract on
the item (the annotation should make clear the relevance of the item to the topic you are
investigating: it should justify the presence of the said item in this bibliography; if you are
unable to actually get hold of the item, write a sentence or two indicating what relevance you
think the item has to this topic), and should indicate the source where you found it (Oxford
Reference; JSTOR; EBSCO; WorldCat; Google Scholar; or other source [specify]). Remember that
you should have at least one item that you found through each of the five named sources here.
The annotated bibliography should be preceded by a couple of paragraphs in which you discuss
(1) the range of materials you were able to find, indicating in what directions you have
expanded the topic (if, indeed, you have expanded the topic beyond the constellation of terms
listed above¡ct/opinion, fact/value, descriptive claim/evaluative claim, thick concepts, factopinion-belief-prejudice) and how the new terms/topics relate to or fit in with the existing
constellation; and (2) what connections you were able to identify between any part of this
constellation of terms and your discipline. (Indicate, of course, what your discipline is and, f you
were not able to find any clear connections with your discipline at present, thatàokay: note
that.) Discuss, in any case, the disciplinary context(s) of the sources you did find: what aspects
of these issues are emphasized in different disciplinary contexts? How transdisciplinary or
disciplinarily-specific does the discussion of these issues seem?
These introductory paragraphs should help us to see how your exploration of this topic
is progressing and your sense of the disciplinary contexts in which these issues are being raised.
The aim of the assignment is to have you undertake bibliographic research into existing
scholarship and, in doing so, to become familiar with several important scholarly resources (the
five sources I¥ specified and perhaps others that you discover on your own), and to begin to
identify the disciplinary location(s) of the scholarly discussion of these issues and topics,
including any connections with your own discipline. This last aspect is meant to have you notice
and scrutinize the disciplinary specificity of knowledge production and scholarly discourse.
(We, talk more about this when we meet together as a group.)

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