How to Make Use of an Annotated Bibliography

How to Make Use of an Annotated BibliographyIf you are trying to find an effective way to produce an MLA format (or 'Bookman' format) annotated bibliography of your academic research, this article is for you. In this brief article, I will outline the two main reasons why MLA format bibliographies are so useful, and will also explain why this format is more attractive than the Bookman bibliography format in terms of publication-quality, legibility, and suitability for display online.First of all, it should be clear that I think that the MLA format is the best format for publishing an annotated bibliography of your academic research. The reason why is fairly straightforward: It is clear and legible, and it is designed to be easy to re-format, adjust, and to update. As such, it is ideally suited to distribution, both as a source for individual authors and groups of authors, and also as a source for distributing bibliographic data in bulk to publishers, librarians, researchers, and stude nts, as well as for archiving.However, there is another reason why the Bookman format is not ideal for any use other than archiving: The Bookman format is designed for the simple purpose of producing a bibliography. The way in which the Bookman format has been designed makes this obvious: It is a book-style format, with paragraphs, headers, and subheadings. Of course, MLA and Bookman are not meaning to be 'books', but they do have very different functions in terms of production, presentation, and source of data. Therefore, if you are looking for a format for editing, generating, and making use of your annotated bibliography, and doing so in the most efficient manner possible, the Bookman format is not ideal.In particular, one of the problems with the Bookman format for scholarly communication is the fact that it is designed for the efficient production of small, easily-updated, bite-sized academic bibliographies. What this means is that the format does not generally scale well for l arger, more detailed bibliographies, and therefore that the use of the Bookman format for any other purpose other than for archiving makes little sense. Furthermore, the Bookman format is limited in terms of portability: Since it is designed to be self-contained, it is limited in terms of the number of files it can support (in terms of file sizes), and in terms of how flexible it is in terms of the types of data it can handle (in terms of the types of entries it can produce).The MLA format, on the other hand, is designed to be more versatile, and to support far more types of files. In particular, since it was designed to be used in document formats such as Microsoft Word, it is capable of supporting even the most complex bibliographies. Furthermore, since it can support an arbitrary number of files and types of data, it is flexible enough to accept and modify these data at the time it is being formatted.In addition, the Bookman format is also designed to be a standard format. In oth er words, if you are looking for a standard format for editing, generating, and making use of your annotated bibliography, and doing so in the most efficient manner possible, the Bookman format is not ideal. In particular, it lacks both the flexibility and the portability of the MLA format.Finally, as I alluded to above, while the Bookman format is very popular, it is also a format that is rather archaic. In particular, it is widely regarded as being excessively complex, and as something that is difficult to get right. In short, in comparison to the flexibility and adaptability of the MLA format, the Bookman format is less useful.In conclusion, if you are trying to find an effective way to produce an MLA format (or 'Bookman' format) annotated bibliography of your academic research, then the Bookman format isnot ideal. If you are looking for a format for editing, generating, and making use of your annotated bibliography, and doing so in the most efficient manner possible, the MLA for mat is not ideal. In fact, in the case of using the Bookman format for any other purpose other than archiving, it is not ideal for any other purpose except as a source for documentation and reference material.