Technical Report Anotated Bibliography
Assignment Date: March 6, 2025
Due Date: April 3, 2025
Overview
This is the first of a two-part assignment to write a technical report that examines the use of statistics to solve an engineering problem. In this assignment, you will select three potential journal articles and provide an annotated bibliography. After receiving feedback from Dr. Timmer, you will select one of the papers and prepare a technical report that satisfies requirements provided in the second assignment.
Report Assignment One
You are to identify three potential papers to use for your technical report and prepare an annotated bibliography for each paper. The purpose of this assignment is find the best possible paper for your technical report that is interesting to you and provides the highest probability of success. Your paper should address a problem in your engineering domain and statistics should be featured in the article. Generally, the best papers are those that are based upon data (experimental results). Your three potential papers will be reviewed and feedback provided as to the suitability of each paper.
Your report must be based upon a peer-reviewed technical article written within the ten years (2015-2025). A peer-reviewed journal article is a paper that has undergone a rigorous review process by the editor of the journal and the editorial staff of the journal. This is intended to ensure that accuracy and validity of the paper. If you are not certain that your article has been peer-reviewed, The University of Queensland library provides a service, ulrichsweb, to check to see if your journal is peer-reviewed.
Annotated Bibiliography
A bibliography is a list of sources used for researching a topic. In this case, your topic must include both engineering and statistics. The term annotation refers to a summary and/or an evaluation. "Therefore an annotated bibliography includes a summary and/or evaluation of each of the sources."
Annotation Criterion
The annotation portion of your annotated bibliography for each paper should contain the following information:
- Statistical topic and textbook chapter covering the topic,
- Engineering problem addressed, and
- Relation to your major (include your major in description) and why you find this paper interesting.
Research Tools
There are many helpful tools for researching potential papers. If you are connected to the internet on-campus, it is usually trivial to download pdf copies of papers.
UTRGV Library Search
My prefered method is to work through the UTRGV library. A screenshot of the UTRGV Library is shown below.
Select Ebooks & Database List to access databases containing journal articles. There is a drop-down menu to search for databases by topic activated by clicking on All Subjects.
A listing of the databases for Engineering - Manufacturing is shown below.
In general, Compendex, Engineering Village, Science Direct, SpringerLink, Web of Science contain many articles that will be suitable for your technical report.
Internet Research Sites
The most obvious site is Google Scholar shown below.
Another resource is Research Gate.
AI Tools
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are rapidly developing and unfortunately the UTRGV library currently has no subscriptions to AI search tools. Two AI searches were undertaken in ChatGPT and Grok.
Bibliography Style
Your bibliography should be prepared using the APA style. An overview is provided by Purdue Online Writing Lab. An excellent illustration of the use of the APA in preparing a bibliography is provided at APA Poster.
Deliverables
You are to provide the following deliverables by the deadline:
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A pdf document containing a professional, type written annotated bibliography prepared using the APA style.
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PDF copies of each of the three articles contained in the annotated bibliography
Please note that this an individual assignment. All submissions will be checked with anti-plagarism software. Ideally, each student will select a unique paper for their technical report.
A sample bibliography is provided.