Evaluating source reliability and author bias in annotated bibliographies

Personal Responsibility-Annotated Bibliography

Downing, S. (2011). On Course: Strategies for Creating Success in College and Life. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Publishing.

Designed specifically for college age students, this is a self-help book that actually has relevant suggestions for modern issues. The book is in its 6th printing, and interestingly is often used in student success courses in formal curriculums. The focus of the book is on choices: successful people make certain choices that tend to put them on a path towards success. The gist of the focus, though, is on the identification of behaviors and beliefs that may need to be changed in order to allow for more success. In other words, the book is all about preventing "self-sabotage," thought the use of tools designed specifically to help younger people. The credibility comes from examples of real people, the interest level in the short psychological tests offered to help uncover behavioral patterns, and the practical advice from an author with advanced degrees in counseling and English who has worked in the collegiate system for three decades. Of course, the author wishes to sell the book as a text, so there might be bias in his way of "viewing the world," but his prose and use of references and anecdotes gives added credibility to the suggestions.

Haskins. R. (July 2009). The Sequence of Personal Responsibility. Brookings Institute. Retrieved from: http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2009/07/09-responsibility-haskins

In the last three decades, there has been more and more debate about the idea of personal responsibility than ever before. Perhaps because of the disillusionment with politics, perhaps because of the recent Enron scandal, but now, the media and scholars are all discussing what it means to have personal responsibility. For Haskins, personal responsibility is a dual issue: willingness to accept standards from society and the desire to make an effort to live by those standards. If we think about it from a logical point-of-view, we see that the idea of personal responsibility has to start with the individual, then move up and out to society. In my own case, this means that I follow through with agreements, act responsible towards school and work, and make an effort to be responsible and more positive with family. The article is written for the lay person, but is well-written without being lecturing. Material from the Brookings Institute is certainly credible, it is a think tank with over 100 years of experience and often used in scholarly and governmental research.

Wilson, S. And Dobson, M. (2009). Goal Setting: How to Create an Action Plan and Achieve Your Goals. New York: American Management Association.