Project Period Annotations

 Introduction to Project Period Annotations

During the project period, MFA students are required to read a minimum of ten books and email a total of ten monthly annotations about these books to their mentors. The length and style of these annotations will vary according to genre and mentor. The annotations may be on books or an individual short story or poem from a collection, or on a screenplay or play. However, students should not write more than one annotation about the same book. At the end of every term, students must combine the ten annotations into a single short annotated bibliography, which will comprise brief versions of the annotations with Modern Language Association (MLA) formatting for the citations.  The short annotated bibliography is emailed to mentors before the end of each term. 

Exemptions:

During the third project period when a student is working on a long critical paper (15-page), annotations are optional. Annotations are required for all fourth-term students, even if the student has chosen to write annotations in the third term or has already completed the 30 annotations minimum. Because their time in the program is shortened, Advanced Standing students are required to write annotations during all terms. Students who have had their long critical papers waived must also write annotations during all terms.

Papers that are sent to mentors ONLY (do not send these to the MFApaperwork account):

• Monthly annotations

• Short annotated bibliographies

Review the resources below before sending project period annotations to your mentor.

Before you submit:

• Read through the guidelines.

• Download the short annotated bibliography template and copy/paste your work or type directly into the Microsoft Word document. See the section below "How to Download Templates" for more details.

• Once your paper is complete, check your work by running through the checklist.

Templates

• The critical paper template is formatted correctly and includes some useful MLA and MFA formatting notes throughout the body. You will need to download the template and copy/paste your work or type directly into the Microsoft Word document. DO NOT use Google Docs to work on your papers as this will distort the correct page format in the template. You MUST DOWNLOAD the document in order to access the correct page format. 

Monthly Book Annotation Samples: Prose & Poetry

Monthly Annotation Samples: Writing for the Screen/Playwriting