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Annotated Bibliography

Is Cyberbullying worse than Traditional School Yard bullying?

I like the reference to school yard bullying. I would have never thought to compare cyberbullying to that. Good question!

Jenna Brown Professor Malcolm Campbell English 1103 10/15/12

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Annotated Bibliography Aftab, Parry. STOP Cyberbullying. Wired Safety. Web. 15 Oct. 2012. Stopcyberbullying.org is a website based project started by Dr. Parry Aftab, and sponsored by Wired Safety. *What is Wired Safety? Just curious. If you dont mention it here, be sure to clarify in your paper as a term that most people might not know about. It is a program designed to inform and campaign for awareness about the problem of Cyberbullying. The site provides easy to follow information on what cyberbullying is, how and why it happens, how to prevent it, and what laws there are regarding cyberbullying. There are links for different age groups of children, parents, educators, and law enforcement. This site was started by a lawyer, so there is decent amount of focus on the laws surrounding online harassment and the legal obligations one has to abide by while online. As far as I can tell the creators of the site do not have a motive other than to help educate parents, teachers, and students about the warning signs and dangers of cyberbullying and harassment. I dont think the creators of the website gain financially from visits to the site *I would be more assertive in your statements here. Be confident in the information you have found. Do a little extra research to confirm whether Wired Safety and their campaign are a not for profit organization; they even offer free safety/tool kits that you can sign up and receive. The site presents a rather technical view on cyberbullying, defining which situations constitute being bullied, common motives and demographics of predators/victims, and ways to handle a situation if one arises. There is not a whole lot of emotion tangled in with the technicalities, but it is obvious that the authors on *of instead of on the website believe in putting an end to bullying via technology. This website will be useful to me in forming my definition of

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cyberbullying for my extended inquiry project. It will also be helpful when I am looking for ways to explain cyberbullying to an audience with little to no prior knowledge. *Great first annotation! You cover all the points required. The only thing is that all your information kind of runs together. You might want to think about separating some of your info into different paragraphs to clarify where your summary is focused versus the other parts. Its not necessary (as far as I can tell based on the assignment sheet) but it might help prevent the rambling effect. If possible, add actual quotes from parts of the website when you are summarizing what the website is about. Some of the annotated bibliography examples on the Moodle page show great ways to incorporate quotes, paraphrases, and summaries into an AB. The Common Errors document is a good place to look at how they did the parenthetical citations. Dooley, Julian J., Jacek Pyzalski, and Donna Cross. Cyberbullying Versus Face-to-Face Bullying: A Theoretical and Conceptual Review. Zeitschrift fr Psychologie/Journal of Psychology, 217.4 (2009):182-188. EBSCOhost Discovery Service. Web. 15 Oct. 2012. *Be specific and name your source at the beginning. Instead of saying This journal maybe try Cyberbullying Versus Face-to-Face etc or Zeitschrift fr Psychologie This journal defines cyberbullying as aggressive behaviors performed using electronic media. They explore how repetition of acts, power imbalances, and the group effect differentiate face-to-face bullying and online bullying. In a case of cyberbullying, the perpetrator (good vocab, I like the description of a cyberbully as a perpetrator) is less likely to have perceived power, but the victim is likely to exhibit a lack of power. (The comparison of perpetrators versus victims is great especially if you are trying to prove that cyberbullying is far worse than schoolyard bullying to the point that it is almost

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criminal. Definitely use that in your paper). They end the article by highlighting the need for more research on the topic in order to understand the behaviors. There is a tremendous amount of research done to create this article, as can be seen by the references and citations throughout. The authors are well educated and well informed, so I am inclined to trust the information presented. This article is non-biased as to whether on type of bullying is worse, because it is only analyzing the social and psychological differences, without a judgment being made. This journal will be useful to me in identifying psychological differences between traditional bullying (face-to-face) and cyberbullying. This will be key when I am looking for evidence that cyberbullying is indeed worse than traditional because I can use their non-biased inferences to support my argument. *Another great annotation! Similar to the last one, use specific pieces of information from the source. When you are describing the references and citations, maybe think about mentioning some specific ones. If this is your peer reviewed article, state who reviewed it. Good job! Mishna, Faye, Michael Saini, and Steven Solomon. Ongoing and Online: Children and youths perceptions of cyberbullying. Children and Youth Services Review 31.12 (2009):12221228. EBSCOhost Discovery Service. Web. 15 Oct. 2012. This paper explores a study of students grades 5-8 and the perspectives they have on cyberbullying. (Question that just popped in my head: Is cyberbullying worse in certain age groups or grade levels? Something to think about). Several unifying themes could be identified in their research. The first was that technology is becoming a dominant form of communication amongst younger generations. The second was that cyberbullying has

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unique factors that differentiate it from traditional bullying because it can happen anytime and anywhere. The third was that the majority of adults are oblivious to cyber bullying when it happens. Another finding was that of perceived anonymity for the person who bullies; though in most accounts, bullying happened within the context of a childs social group. In this article, the authors mention that the research team was involved with relevant stakeholders, which means that there is possibility of outside influence on the results collected. In any study of people and their reactions or perceptions, you have to be wary of what you tell those test subjects. If they know what you are looking for, they are more likely to give the researchers what they want even if that data is false. This could be the case for some of the participants in this study and the other studies I read. This journal will be useful to me because the theme appeared through their research that cyberbullying is in fact worse than face-to-face because it can happen anywhere and at any time. The article supports one side of the argument I intend to explore. *Good job separating your thoughts into different paragraphs. I like the way you describe how each source will be useful to you. When you are describing what types of sources you are using are any of them government supported or specifically from academic sources? From what I can tell they are mostly academic which you might want to mention somewhere in your annotation even though your citation shows they are from a journal. Spears, Barbara, et al. Behind the Scenes and Behind the Screens: Insights into the Human Dimension of Covert and Cyberbullying. FlindersUniversity, Adelaide, SA, Australia, 2008. Print.

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Behind the Scenes and Behind the Screens Remember to make sure your sources are properly formatted when you reference them is a case study where Australian students, teachers, and counselors were asked to recount stories of cyberbullying experiences. Cyber bullying (cyberbullying one word or two words? Double check for consistency) is categorized in this study as covert bullying, behaviors which are concealed. The study outlines methodology and procedures, and then goes into a discussion of the results. They found that acts of cyberbullying were described with words like vicious, cruel, and obscene; the subjects attached a lot of negative emotion to the experiences. (The emotional impact of cyberbullying sounds really interesting. I would definitely consider diving deeper into that in your paper as well) Other themes that emerged in the victims and witnesses of cyberbullying were fear, change in self-image, and disruption of relationships. This case study is scientific in nature; however, it analyzes the human emotional component of cyberbullying, which cant necessarily be measured. I got the impression that the authors of the article thought cyberbullying left deep emotional scars on all victims, and that cyberbullying was a dark trend that needed to be made known to people. This is because of the imagery and word choice (Diction! great way to evaluate a sources point of view!) they use in the Human Dimension section and the summary, for example pain and suffering, of humiliation and anger, and of violation and vulnerability, and clearly supports previous studies which reported that the impact of cyberbullying is significant. In all the case studies I have looked through it is difficult to say that any information gathered or conclusions drawn can be referred to as fact due to the nature of the observations. This study will be useful to my research and writing because it gives a good understanding of how people react when being bullied in different

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ways, which can be used to determine an opinion on which form is worse, or has the worst outcome.

Great job on your annotated bibliography! Your sources sound like they will provide you with a lot of good information to build an essay on. Be confident when discussing the validity of a source! They all seem to come from good academic sources. With a little extra research Im sure you could easily find evidence to support the validity of the journal or website. Think about adding specific quotes and paraphrases from the actual sources. Also, when you separate parts of your annotations into different paragraphs it prevents any potential for rambling. I loved how you used diction and other elements of writing to evaluate the opinion a source supported. I will definitely be using that approach in my AB now as well. With just a little bit of polishing I think you will be good to go with this and will be ready to start writing an awesome paper!