Project Period Annotations
Introduction to Project Period Annotations
During the project period, MFA students are required to email monthly annotations (books or individual short story or poem annotations) to their mentors. The length and style of these annotations will vary according to genre and mentor. At the end of every term, students must combine the 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.
How to Download Templates
Click on the template link to open the document in your browser.
Click "File" in the window that pops up.
Click "Download" in the "File" dropdown menu.
Click "Microsoft Word" in the "Download" dropdown menu. The document will download to your computer as a Microsoft Word document. You will then be able to open the template on your computer and save it for future use.
Monthly Book Annotation Samples: Prose & Poetry
Deaf Republic
Merry Dennehy
Wade in the Water
Barbara Fant
Winter's Bone: A Novel
Sona Gevorkian
The Correspondence by J.D. Daniels
Sarah Haas
Books, Homes, and Human Beings – Two Long Sentences in Too Loud a Solitude
Jasper Henderson
It’s a Thin Line Between the Love of Comedy and Hate of Tragedy: An Annotation of George Saunders’ Victory Lap
Roberto Lovato
Orange World and Other Stories
Garuda Love
The Year of Blue Water
Jordan Nakamura
Monthly Annotation Samples: Writing for the Screen/Playwriting
Minari by Lee Isaac Chung
Ty Halton
Us by Jordan Peel
Ty Halton
Red by John Logan
John Richards