Annotated Bibliography Template

Annotated bibliography: Does typing lecture notes hurt learning?

Course or project: PSY 1010, Prof. Okafor, research paper Citation style: APA 7 Due: 2026-11-16 Research question: Do students who take lecture notes on laptops learn less than students who write by hand, and if so, why? Related: [[PSY 1010 research paper]]

Sources

Morehead, Dunlosky and Rawson, 2019

Morehead, K., Dunlosky, J., & Rawson, K. A. (2019). How much mightier is the pen than the keyboard for note-taking? A replication and extension of Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014). Educational Psychology Review, 31(3), 753-780. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09468-2

Summary. The authors repeat the 2014 laptop study as closely as they can and add conditions with other devices. Longhand note-takers still did slightly better in places, but the differences were small and not reliably significant.

Evaluation. Dunlosky is a leading researcher on study strategies, and a direct replication is the right test of a result this widely quoted. It does not show laptops are harmless; it shows the original effect is weaker than the headlines suggested.

Use in my paper. Section 3, the counterargument. This is why my thesis says "may" and not "does."

Status: annotated

Mueller and Oppenheimer, 2014

Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159-1168. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614524581

Summary. Across three experiments, students who typed notes wrote more words and copied lectures closer to verbatim than students who wrote by hand. Typists did about as well on factual questions but worse on conceptual ones, and telling them not to transcribe did not fix it.

Evaluation. Peer reviewed in a top journal and cited constantly, which is exactly why it needs checking. The lectures were short videos, not a real semester, so I should not generalize to a 15-week course.

Use in my paper. Section 2, the main evidence for the mechanism: transcription instead of processing.

Status: annotated

Roediger and Karpicke, 2006

Roediger, H. L., III, & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249-255. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x

Summary. Students who practiced recalling a passage remembered more of it days later than students who reread it, even though rereading looked better on an immediate test.

Evaluation. Not about note-taking at all, but it is a well-replicated finding about what makes learning stick.

Use in my paper. Conclusion. If the device matters less than what students do with the notes afterwards, this is the evidence for "quiz yourself from your notes."

Status: read, annotation drafted

Considered and rejected

• Blog post "Ban laptops in class": no data, cites only the 2014 study.

Annotated bibliography: Why highways split neighborhoods

Course or project: WRIT 102, Ms. Delgado, researched argument Citation style: MLA 9 Due: 2026-11-09 Research question: Should my city remove the elevated highway that cut through the Eastside in 1964? Related: [[WRIT 102 argument essay]]

Sources

Caro, 1974

Caro, Robert A. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.

Summary. A biography of Robert Moses, the unelected official who built much of New York's highway and park system. The chapter "One Mile" follows the Cross Bronx Expressway through a single neighborhood and the families it displaced.

Evaluation. Won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and is based on years of interviews and records. It is openly critical of Moses, so I should not use it as a neutral account of why highways were built.

Use in my paper. Paragraph 3. "One Mile" is the human cost section; I only need that chapter, not all of its more than 1,100 pages.

Status: read "One Mile", skimmed the rest

Jacobs, 1961

Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Random House, 1961.

Summary. Jacobs argues that planners of her time destroyed what made city streets work. Lively neighborhoods need mixed uses, short blocks, a mix of old and new buildings, and enough density, and they stay safe because people watch the street.

Evaluation. Jacobs was a journalist, not a planner, and her evidence is mostly observation of her own neighborhoods. Her ideas are now mainstream, which makes this a strong source for values but a weak one for numbers.

Use in my paper. Paragraph 4, on what could replace the highway: a street with uses on both sides, not a park nobody crosses.

Status: annotated

Considered and rejected

• City DOT traffic counts from 2009: replaced by the 2025 study, which my teacher pointed me to.

Annotated bibliography: Who should manage a shared fishery?

Course or project: ENVP 640 Environmental Governance, Dr. Lindqvist Citation style: APA 7 Due: 2026-12-04 Research question: Do community-managed fisheries avoid overfishing without state control or privatization? Related: [[ENVP 640 literature review]]

Sources

Hardin, 1968

Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162(3859), 1243-1248. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.162.3859.1243

Summary. Using the image of herders on a shared pasture, Hardin argues that each user gains from adding one more animal while the cost of overgrazing is spread across everyone, so a freely open resource is destroyed. His wider target is population growth, and his remedy is coercion that the community agrees to, through regulation or private property.

Evaluation. An essay, not an empirical study. Its model treats the commons as open to anyone, which most real commons are not. Hugely influential in policy, which is why it frames the debate even for people who reject it.

Use in my paper. The opening position my review argues against.

Status: annotated

Ostrom, 1990

Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press.

Summary. Ostrom studies long-lasting common-pool resource systems, including Swiss alpine meadows, Japanese village forests and Spanish irrigation communities, and finds that users often build their own rules that work for centuries. She distills eight design principles, such as clear boundaries, local monitoring and graduated sanctions.

Evaluation. Built on detailed case evidence, and the basis of her 2009 Nobel Prize in economics. The cases are survivors, so the book says less about how often community management fails.

Use in my paper. The framework for section 2. I will score the three fisheries in my review against her eight principles.

Status: annotated, need to reread chapter 3 for the principles table

Considered and rejected

• A 2003 textbook summary of both: secondary, adds nothing the originals do not.

Annotated bibliography: Language and colonial power in Things Fall Apart

Course or project: ENGL 245 Postcolonial Fiction, Prof. Adeyemi Citation style: MLA 9 Due: 2026-11-20 Research question: Does Achebe's choice to write in English weaken or strengthen the novel's argument against colonial rule? Related: [[ENGL 245 final essay]]

Sources

Achebe, 1958

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Heinemann, 1958.

Summary. The novel follows Okonkwo, a respected man in the Igbo village of Umuofia, through exile and return as missionaries and a colonial government arrive. It shows a complex society from the inside before showing how it comes apart.

Evaluation. The primary text. My copy is a later printing, so I cite the edition I am quoting from and keep page numbers from that copy only.

Use in my paper. Close readings in sections 2 and 3, especially the final chapter, where the narration shifts to the District Commissioner's view.

Status: read twice, passages tagged

Ngũgĩ, 1986

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. James Currey, 1986.

Summary. Ngũgĩ explains why he stopped writing fiction in English and turned to Gikuyu. He argues that a colonial language carries colonial values, so African literature written in English serves a foreign audience.

Evaluation. A writer's manifesto, not neutral scholarship, and it is in open disagreement with Achebe's position. That disagreement is exactly what my essay needs.

Use in my paper. The opposing view in section 1.

Status: annotated

Said, 1993

Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

Summary. Said reads canonical European novels alongside the empires that produced them, then turns to writers from colonized places who answered those novels in their own work, a movement he calls "the voyage in."

Evaluation. A standard work in postcolonial criticism. Long and wide-ranging, so I will use only the sections on Conrad and on resistance.

Use in my paper. Section 4, framing the English-language novel as a reply aimed at the colonizer's readers.

Status: skimmed, annotation in progress

Working bibliography: Housing instability and neighborhood ties

Course or project: Senior thesis, Sociology, advisor Dr. Brennan Citation style: APA 7 Due: chapter 2 draft 2027-01-15 Research question: How does repeated eviction change the social ties renters keep with their neighborhood? Related: [[Thesis chapter 2]], [[Interview guide v3]]

Sources

Desmond, 2016

Desmond, M. (2016). Evicted: Poverty and profit in the American city. Crown.

Summary. An ethnography of eight Milwaukee families and their landlords, showing eviction as a cause of poverty and not only a result of it. Desmond pairs fieldwork with survey data on how common forced moves are.

Evaluation. Won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and is the reference point for this topic. One city, so I need a second setting before generalizing.

Use in my paper. Chapter 2 opening; my interview guide borrows its attention to forced moves that never reach a court.

Status: annotated

Putnam, 2000

Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. Simon & Schuster.

Summary. Putnam documents falling membership and participation in American civic life over the late twentieth century and calls the loss a decline in social capital.

Evaluation. Large data, broad claims, and criticized for underplaying new forms of participation.

Use in my paper. Possibly the definition of social capital only. Ask Dr. Brennan if a narrower source is better.

Status: skimmed

Wilson, 1987

Wilson, W. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy. University of Chicago Press.

Summary. Wilson links concentrated urban poverty to the loss of industrial jobs and the departure of working- and middle-class families from inner-city neighborhoods, which removed local institutions and role models.

Evaluation. A foundational structural account. Written before the current housing market, so it explains neighborhood decline better than individual evictions.

Use in my paper. Background in chapter 2, section 1.

Status: annotated

Considered and rejected

• Local news series on evictions, 2024: useful for my own context, not citable as evidence. Moved to [[Background reading]].