Joseph Overman

3-11-15
Annotated Bibliography
Annotated Bibliography
1. List of Key Words: Salary, universities, education, public education, private education,
graduation rates, tuition, debt, economic advantages, college statistics.
These key words helped me with my research because they allowed me to find the information that I
was looking for from the beginning. The key words that were connected to each other included tuition
and debt. Also salary and economic advantages were connected. The information that I found from
some of the key words I searched led me to research other things effectively making those other
searches key words as well.
2. Concept map:

This is a concept map illustrating the four main areas of focus in my paper. There were many links that
I found in my research some of which include:

A link between investment and pros and cons of public school. Public

school graduates have less debt than grads from private schools

A link between career and pros and cons of private schools. Private
school graduates earn 20% more than public school graduate.

A link between investment and pros and cons of private school. Private
school's tuition is more than that of public schools but for that additional
investment there are more resources available to private school students.

There were also a few disconnects between the information I found from different sources. The
main one was from the Forbes article in which it says what you do with and education is as
least as important as the school you attend. This is contradictory to what is in the business
insider article which says that there is little difference between getting a job based solely on
what type of college you attend.
3. The main idea that was uncovered in my research was that all school have individual
characteristics that make them unique. This idea expands more to suggest that when making the
decision of what school to go to whether the school is private or public should not be a deciding
factor. The research tells me that each school regardless of being public or private has its own
pros and cons that are not totally dependent on the type of school it is.
Most of the time the information seemed to be saying the same thing. It was saying that going to
college in general was more important that where you actually go. The information was pointing to the
importance of higher education and what it will do for you down the road. Other connections that I
made in my research were mostly of a financial matter. There was a lot of talk about the investment that
is made when choosing the college that a student goes to. Furthermore the information on student debt
was very important because of what it told me about how the pros of private college which are there
because of the greater cost of private college are also a con because of the greater debt. The pros of
private colleges such as their greater resources and greater range of connections are there because of

their higher costs. This was not stated in one source in my research but that conclusion was drawn from
combining the findings form multiple sources such as Business insider and college.usatoday.
A major problem was having a good amount of sources to use since all of the sources were saying the
same things. I was very frustrated by this because it felt that using a few sources was going to be very
difficult. Also because of this my earlier drafts lacked the substance that they needed for the paper to be
well rounded and whole.
As I mentioned above the paper lacked substance in the beginning. To add material to the paper I began
to branch out and look into different things such as admissions and funding. I discovered a website
called Petersons which helped explain how public schools were funded and this connected to other
information found from business insider which made a clear connection and explained why the tuition
of public schools is so much less than that of private institutions.
The writing that I did at the beginning of the inquiry piece was very straight forward mainly focusing
on facts and not connections. As I progressed through the project I found myself noticing the
connections with ease. I would see information from one source and as soon as I saw it I would make
the connection saying hey, this thing explains this other thing. My writing changed because as I saw
these facts I would want to incorporate the new connections that I made into the digital essay. As I
talked about the topic that I was doing with other people I found that what I was writing about in my
essay but mainly in my academic/professional piece connected to people because they had many of the
same thoughts that I did and that they could relate to what I was writing about.
I am going to research what colleges think about this information and also what business think about
this. I want to know how businesses view a private versus a public education and whether or not that
makes a difference when they hire workers.
4. Business Insider: I found business insider to be my most valuable source. This is a reliable
source because it draws its information from accredited outside sources such as US News and
World and the Princeton Review. Since it draws its information from outside sources there is

not a chance that they were altering the results of surveys and test to make a point. In addition,
this website goes in depth exploring the pros and cons of both public and private schools. My
opinion of this website was that it was very informative and unbiased. There was lots of good,
quality information that not only answered the initial questions that I asked but also allowed me
to ask other questions and broaden the scope of my research. The contents of the website helped
me answer questions such as what is the average student debt and what is the difference in
tuition between public and private colleges? Furthermore this source led to many questions
like why are public colleges less expensive? Business Insider was my most valuable source
because it answered questions and sparked my interest to ask other questions.
Petersons: Peterson's was a source that I did not gather a lot of information from but was rather a
resource that I used to answer a specific question that was formed because of my other research. When
I was doing my research I asked why do public schools cost so much less than private ones? I used
Peterson's to find the answer to this question. I found this source to be interesting because it not only
answered my question but also taught me something new that was not directly related to my inquiry
topic but still interesting.
Collegebound.net: Collegebound.net was another source that was used to answer a question that was
sparked by my research. This source I used to research the admissions process in both public and
private schools. I learned that in public schools the grades of the applicants while they were in high
school were very important to the process because there are so many applicants. The reason that this
source is reliable is because this source uses statistics from the National Association of College
Admission Counseling's State of College Admission Report 2010. The information links into the
information about school size because it shows that the number of applicants is very high meaning that
a quantitative measure of a students value to the school has to be used.
Fox business: Fox business was a source that I used to compare and contrast public and private
schools. I found this to be a reliable source because fox is a major news corporation and they are

trusted by many people. It was very helpful because it listed out pros and cons of both public and
private school and then explained each of the pros and cons. This source is not directly sited in my
paper because there was information from this source that matched up identically to that from another
source, Business insider. Although this is not directly sited that does not mean that it was not helpful. In
fact this source let me to research other things like the prestige of certain colleges.
College.usatoday: The article that I found on college.usatoday.com was very informative and added a
lot of insight to my research. The main thing that I took away from this article was that colleges have
their own traits and personalities. Also this article expressed the view that college is an investment
which I used to research many other things like cost, debt, and earnings after college. This was a
reliable source because it came from a major news network.
Forbes: The Forbes article that I read was about a woman talking about putting her children through
college and the decisions that she made in the process. This was a good source because it gave a first
hand account of the process that a mother went through when putting her children through school.
When reading this article I could feel the emotions that she felt and to me this made me understand the
information better. This article helped tie into the other articles by also expressing that each school is
unique and that the student should choose the school that is the best fit for them. This article also says
something very important about private educations and that is that there better be a good reason to
spend the extra money each year.
Youtube video: The youtube video link that I have in my paper is very informative because it gives an
easy way to learn the information that is in the paper. It is not anything that is not in any of the other
sources but it just gives a visual way to learn the information.
5. Works Cited:

"Collegebound Network." Differences Between Public and Private Universities and Liberal
Arts Colleges. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2015.

"Public Or Private College. Is The Outcome Any Different?" Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d.
Web. 09 Apr. 2015.

"Public University vs. Private College." Peterson's. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2015.

"Should You Choose a Public or Private College?" USA TODAY College. N.p., 28 Oct. 2013.
Web. 22 Mar. 2015.

Woodruff, Mandi. "PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE COLLEGE: Which Is Better For Your Wallet?"
Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 22 May 2013. Web. 05 Mar. 2015.