Annotated Bibliography In Mla FormatWhat Is An Annotated Bibliography in MLA Format?
An annotated bibliography in MLA format is a list of research sources with brief descriptions that are referenced in the Modern Language Association (MLA) format. Annotated bibliographies have each research source as a bibliographic entry, and contained within each entry is a paragraph or a few lines on the source itself. Information often contained within source annotations includes level and scope of the book, author perspective, as well as any other relevant info about the book that would aid a person in the research itself. Annotated bibliographies are a fun way to gloss books quickly and find out the most essential information about an author and his work. Knowing an author’s perspective will make reading his or her work enjoyable.
The Benefits of Annotated Bibliography in MLA Format
There are some significant benefits to having an annotated bibliography in MLA format. First, the Modern Language Association requests that all papers written in the format have a source list in the same format. This helps the paper look uniform and scholarly. Next, an annotated bibliography in MLA format allows a person to gather significant information about an author in a short time. One simply investigates certain things about each work, and uses the material (such as author perspective, background, thesis of the book, and other pertinent information) to aid him or her in the research. Moreover, it prevents a person from being accused of plagiarism and punished publicly. Often, when students annotate sources, they can read the author so much that they start to sound like him or her, unbeknownst to them. If this happens to be the case with a student, a professor may be willing to grant leeway over the citation (though call for the citation’s correction), since the student annotated the source appropriately. Long, hard, tedious work may grant an academic pardon when it comes to an issue such as plagiarism.
The annotated bibliography in MLA format is designed to help students become acquainted with the works of authors in a shorter amount of time than it takes to read them. Students can peruse an author’s book, looking for certain factors about the author and his or her background, only to emerge from the book fully aware of the author’s thesis and subject matter. When it comes to long research projects, a student will be glad he or she invested the time and research to annotate the bibliography.
