Annotated Bibliography format: (Updated to include quotes)
Independent Reading Annotated
Bibliography:
Throughout
the year you will be expected to read at least three independent reading books
per semester. You will also complete annotations on class novels. Your
Annotated Bibliography is due on _________ for first semester, but you are required
to create a saved document where you can update your annotations as you go
through the semester. Second semester A.B. due: _________
Annotated
Bibliographies will be typed, alphabetized, and formatted using the MLA
citation first, followed by the annotation. Annotations should be between 100-150
words.
Begin with an Attention-grabbing
quote from book, with page number
Citation
(MLA style):
Author’s
last name, First name. Title (in italics or
underlined). Place published: Publisher, Year published. Source type.
Annotation
guidelines: Fiction
*Summarize the genre (historical
fiction, realistic fiction) and main plot elements: Major characters, setting,
conflict (2-3 sentences)
*Identify a theme or themes in the
novel and how they connect to our society. (1-2 sentences)
*Author’s style, book’s structure, reading
difficulty (Syntax, word choice, how it is organized, use of figurative
language, accessibility) (1-2 sentences)
*Your reaction/experience/connection
with the book.
*A summary comment on intended
audience and relationship, if any, to other books (Readers who enjoy…. would
enjoy… because…)
Annotation
guidelines: Nonfiction
*Information to explain the
authority and/or qualifications of the author. For example: Dr. William Smith,
a history professor at XYZ University, based his book on twenty years of
research.
* Scope and main purpose of the work.
*Any biases that you detect.
*Your reaction/experience/connection
with the book.
*A summary comment on intended
audience and relationship, if any, to other books (Readers who enjoy…. would
enjoy… because…)
DO NOT PLAGIARIZE ANY PORTION OF YOUR ANNOTATIONS. THIS IS YOUR OWN
SUMMARY AND INTERPRETATION OF THE BOOK. You may use EasyBib.com to help you
create your MLA Citation, but you should learn the format.
Annotated Bibliography Example
“…[L]ow-wage workers are no more homogeneous
in personality or ability than people who write for a living, and no less likely
to be funny or bright” (8).
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel
and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. New
York: Henry
Holt, 2002. Print.
Writer Barbara Ehrenreich goes undercover to discover whether the men and women
getting off welfare in the late nineties can make ends meet in low-wage,
“unskilled” jobs. Though she is a writer, and fortunate enough to be part of
the “professional” class, she comes from a coal-miner father, and is married to
a man who was a factory worker who now organizes with the Teamsters’ union.
Ehrenreich lives and works in three places: as a waitress in Florida, a
housecleaner and caregiver in Maine, and as a retail clerk in Wal-Mart in
Minnesota. Through each of her month-long stays she learns the sobering truth
of low-income earners in this country: that the work is far from “low-skilled”
and the income is not enough to afford safe lodgings and nutritious meals.
Ehrenreich enters into her experiment fully aware of her privileged position as
a temporary visitor to this low-wage land. She is impressed by the lengths her
fellow workers go through to make it each month, and amazed at the degradation
and hardships low-wage workers face in their work. I found the book engaging
and thoughtful as it explored the issues faced by so many in our country, and
kept wondering: What can we do to improve the lives of our citizens in low-wage
jobs. Nickel and Dimed is an
essential read for all Americans, and will cause readers to question the price
low-wage earners are being forced to pay for work that is largely disregarded
and unappreciated by the middle and upper classes.
“One
night she dove and she didn’t come back. Air cloaked the hole that she left and
it didn’t once tremble, no bubbles, it seemed she really wasn’t going to
surface”(7).
Russell, Karen. Swamplandia! New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. Print.
Swamplandia! is a novel set in
the Florida Everglades, mainly on the island amusement park that inspires the
title. The thirteen-year-old narrator Ava Bigtree and her family (including her
father, Chief Bigtree, her older brother, Kiwi, and her older sister Osceola)
are mourning the loss of Hilola Bigtree, the mother of the clan, and the main
attraction at the Swamplandia alligator wrestling park. After Hilola’s death
the family is left to try, in their various ways, to hold the park together. In
doing so the family fractures, as does the structure of the book, following
certain members off on their own journeys to keep their way of life intact. It
is a coming of age story for Ava, who wrestles with how one handles loss and
change while still holding on to what matters. Karen Russell’s writing is dense
with rich sensory detail, including truly unique metaphors and figurative
language. Her syntax is as complex as the plant life that snakes through the
Everglades. I loved the writing, but the plot did not keep me turning the
pages, and this book ended up taking a very long time to get through. It would
be a great book for people who love rich detail and want to spend some time
lost in the swamplands of Florida with some very memorable characters.
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