Sample Annotated Bibliography (MLA Format)

Working Thesis   

Since current efforts to curb texting while driving through legislation are proving ineffective, activists should focus their efforts on persuading car manufacturers to install safety devices in new cars that prevent drivers from texting while driving. 

Citation 1

Jones, Joe. “Texting While Driving Legislation Proving Useless.” Transportation Safety, edited by Frank Harvey, 2nd ed., vol. 3, Singleton, 2016, pp. 80-89

Summary

This book chapter discusses a study done in 2014 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency, a division of the U.S. Department of Transportation, where they looked at the number of car accidents caused by texting while driving in states with legislation banning texting while driving. They compared the number of accidents before and after the law was passed and found that there was no reduction in these accidents, even after the law had been in place for over three years and there had been multiple publicity campaigns to raise awareness. 

Evaluation

The chapter was written by Joe Jones, who is a law professor at the University of Michigan specializing in transportation legislation. Because of his expertise in the field, he should be a reliable author to write about the subject. The book Transportation Safety was published by Singleton, which is a well-respected publisher of reference material for academic libraries. The book was published in 2016 but the statistics all came from 2014, so in my paper, I’ll have to consider that the numbers may have changed. The source of the statistics, though, is very reliable because the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency is the government agency responsible for collecting national statistics on car accidents. The source is not biased because they support texting while driving bans, so the fact that they show no improvement helps support their objectiveness. 

Your Use

This book chapter supports the first part of my argument that claims texting while driving bans are ineffective; this will be the first point I address in my paper in order to convince my audience that car safety devices are a better solution. I will also use the chapter for the statistics and background it provides on which states have texting while driving bans and how the bans were passed, so I can show how much effort has been focused on passing legislation.