Annotated Biblography

1

Rise and Fall of the Personal Essay in Media

Student Name

Columbia Southern University

Course Name

Instructor Name

Date

Annotated Bibliography Format Checklist

1-inch margins

Double spacing

Times New Roman (suggested)

Paragraphs indentation of .5 inch

(using Tab)

All seven references in alphabetical

order

Each annotation is 150 to 200 words

Center the title of your paper

above the first reference. 2

Rise and Fall of the Personal Essay in Media

Almanza, M., Pfizer, A., & Mousislli, H. (2016). The dread rise. Journal of Journalism Studies,

7(89), 134–152. https://doi.org/10.2597/234-4722.2016.05

First, list your

reference in

APA Style.

The

annotation, or

summary of

the source,

should begin

under the

reference.

Indent the first

line of the

paragraphs in

your

annotations.

This source is an article for the con side of the research topic. Almanza et al.

examine blogs and internet sites that allowed amateur writers to publish or self-publish

whatever stories they chose. The authors provide examples of stories as tinder for their

strong polemic on the personal essay. They also include a graph that details the start of

what they term the “dread rise,” or the rise in popularity of the personal essay; the graph

starts in 2008 and ends in late 2016. The graph will be used as a visualization of the rise

and fall of personal essays. Almanza et al. also argue that the more confessional personal

essays devalue the entire literary community by allowing writers to publish work based

on shock value instead of literary merit. They provide a few excerpts from confessional

essays that are truly absurd to thoroughly prove their point. These excerpts will be used

to argue the con part of the research paper’s argument.

Gordon, F., & Arden, D. (2014). The personal era of writing fiction, nonfiction, and everything

else. Indie Presses.

Gordon and Arden discuss how the confessional, or personal, essay has affected

nonfiction, fiction, and other genres of writing. They present two fiction and nonfiction

examples each and discuss the changes in form and diction. Examples of poetry and

feature articles are also provided and examined. Gordon and Arden believe that the rise in

personal and confessional essays affected the formal nature of writing in all genres. They

note that, societally, formality has changed writing and everything else, but there is a

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large difference in the writing of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and feature writing after the

resurgence of the personal essay. There was also a rise in the personal and sometimes

irrelevant information included in an attempt to get readers to engage with a particular

publication exclusively. The readerships for the publications publishing personal essays

went up, but all of them saw a huge drop off in November 2016, causing a major shift in

the editorial processes of many publishers online or otherwise. Many online publishers

closed. The examples of the different kind of writing will be used to show the differences

in the writing styles. You can also include how you will use the

source in your paper.

Ma, Y., Turoi, M., Cho, J., & Idowu, A. (2015). A study of media and journalism. Journal-

Journal, 7(2), 13–25. https://doi.org/10.559/wjp.v5.i3.2313

This is another neutral source that simply lists certain aspects of journalism that

have changed over time. The authors documented the usage of certain words and types of

writing—essays, interviews, cover stories, and others. In their study, Ma et al. noticed a

spike in personal and confessional essays in journalism around 2008 and a decline 8 years

later at the end of 2016. They speak on the reasons for this particular phenomenon and

include a number of interviews from journalists at two national news organizations and

three newspapers in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. The study managed to present

a balanced set of data that shows both the increase in the websites using the personal

essay boom for profit and authentic websites that were created to combat the rise of

personal essay news. This resource will be used to provide a different perspective on the

negative part of the argument.

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Potter, H., Anders, D., Smith, C., Hash, M., Toppingham, P., Jacobson, Z., & Kim, S. (2013).

Disconnections in journalism and the personal narrative. PLoS ONE, 5(27).

https://doi.org/10.17871/journal.pone.10770 In an

annotated

bibliography,

you do not

need to cite

paraphrased

information.

It is not a

best practice

to include

directly

quoted

information

in your

annotations.

This resource was a collaboration between 37 authors that cataloged the internet’s

response to news stories from the major news outlets. The authors compared this

information to the responses garnered by the literary sites accepting the occasional new

worthy submission. Many of the websites specializing in showcasing creative writing

genres received an influx of stories that were personal essays but contained news

elements and angles not often taken by the national news outlets. Because of the influx of

this kind of prose, the sites started to publish them; from there they gained traction and

ballooned the viewership of these sites. Potter et al. mention that at the height of this

boom, the actual news content dwindled, and the confessional nature of them became

alternative for the sake of readers and hits. This resource will be used to highlight the

negative impact the confession essay wave had on news in general.

5

Wong, P. S. (2016). Love for the confessional nature. Current Lit, 12(4), 23–27.

https://doi.org/10.3847/co.23.2935

Wong argues that confessing is part of the human condition as much as lying, and

it is cathartic to write in such a manner. She cites the restorative effects of journaling as

indicator of this and provides statistics that show the correlation between journaling and

improved mood. Wong uses this data to stress the importance of the confessional nature

of the more recent personal essays, and denounces critics of it. She does side with the

critics on one point, however. She agrees that there is a place for the confessional or

personal essay. While it is important to confess, Wong mentions that audiences should

not become stand-in priests; too much of the confessional essays can sink a career. This is

what she says happened when the stock in personal essays fell. People were tired of

reading purely personal information and started to switch to more informational reading

material.

Remember that the purpose of the assignment is to summarize the source you have

gathered for your research paper in your own words, so directly quoted material is not

required. You will not need to provide your opinions or personal experience. Present

the information relevant to your research paper topic in 150-200 words.