Grand Strategy Japan - Annotated Bibliography - Assignment Help

Annotated Bibliography

Topic: Grand Strategy – Japan

For this assignment students have to submit an annotated bibliography.

At a minimum, the annotated bibliography concentrates on the concept selected by the student. Ideally - and this is a condition for High Distinction - students will combine one of the topics discussed in the first part of the course (conceptual part) with a particular case study (from the universe of case studies discussed in the second part of the course).

Students will choose the topic for this assignment in week 5:

• Only one student can choose a particular concept/case study combination.
• To select the topic, access the link "Selection of Assignment Topics" available from the "Assignment" Tab.
• That link will open in the last minutes of week 5 tutorial (at 2.45 pm) and close on Friday April 1, at 9 am.
• Students who have not made their own choice by that date will be allocated a particular combination.

Students will upload the annotated bibliography only through learnonline, before the due date (April 5, at 9 am)
The maximum size of the document to be uploaded is 1 Gb.
Please use a Word Document format (not PDF) and avoid complicated formats (borders, etc).

For this assignment students have to submit an annotated bibliography.

Students will primarily concentrate their annotated bibliography on one of the concepts discussed in the first part of the course. For the highest marks, this assignment would combine one of the topics discussed in the first part of the course (conceptual part) with a particular case study (from the universe of case studies discussed in the second part of the course).

• At a minimum, students would write their entire annotated bibliography around one of the five main concepts. For example, this assignment can constitute an annotated bibliography on the concept of "grand strategy".
• To obtain a mark of High Distinction, students must target not only a specific concept, but also materials addressing the chosen concept in one of the five case studies to be discussed in the second part of the course. For example, the annotated bibliography can refer to seminal works around the concept of Strategic Culture as well as works discussing this concept in the specific case of the US. Thus, the subject of the annotated bibliography will combine notable works on the concept of strategic culture in general, with prominent works analysing the specificity of the American strategic culture.

Students will choose the topic of this assignment through learnonline on the link to be found in the "Assignments" Tab. While this link will open at the end of the 5th seminar, it is strongly advisable students do research as early as possible.

The style of the Annotated Bibliography will follow that of Oxford Bibliography, a copy of which will be uploaded on the Course webpage under the Assignment tab. The 2nd tutorial (week 2) will contain a discussion on the nature of an annotated bibliography and the distinction between annotated bibliography, literature review and review essays, so students should come prepared with questions for that tutorial.

Students must identify a minimum of 10 scholarly sources for this assignment, with at least 2-3 of these sources constituting books. It is essential to keep in mind that these sources must be:

• a) scholarly sources: non scholarly (non peer-reviewed) sources can be discussed too but in addition to the 10 minimum scholarly sources;
• b) seminal pieces: that means influential pieces rather than any journal article or book (the assumption is students make a selection of what sources they considered seminal).
• c) go beyond mandatory readings and lectures in the course: the idea is students engage in individual research to identify specific sources.

The purpose of this assignment is twofold:

1. To encourage students to read widely on the subject of their topic (concept and ideally case study) and to start their research as early as possible.
2. identifying the essential debates in the field will help building up a research base for the remaining assignments.