For design entry 3, I compared Oliver Scott’s annotated bibliography to my own. Oliver and I essentially identified the same problem, global sustainability. Oliver specifically focused on the wasteful habits of the current American population and spent time discussing what had changed since World War II; when Americans willingly went without goods and comfort to ensure the success of the war effort. Since then, he argues Americans either don’t care that sustainability is an issue or haven’t fully recognized the problem we face. I focused on the need to develop large scale renewable technology and the economic issues these projects must overcome to be successful. Oliver’s discipline of computer engineering allowed him highlight specific technologies within the field of automated trash sorting that will help improve the efficiency or reliability of these systems to reduce wastefulness. I read Oliver’s problem statement prior to knowing his discipline of study and was surprised to learn he was a computer engineering major as he took a very historical and analytical approach to his problem statement. Oliver’s commentary about what had changed in American society in just a few generations was very interesting and he seems to suggest that since society as a whole does not care enough to reduce waste, we must turn to technology instead.
Oliver broke up each part of his citation into separate lines which made it easier to read and seemed better organized than my own, which I left in a varied paragraph format. Oliver and I used the tags in about the same way, but he consistently broke up the citation into several more parts, often using two or three types of the summary element. As a result, I thought his document was well organized and would prove to be easy to code. Oliver also did not try to explain the specific technologies that he mentions in the annotated bibliography which I think works better than what I did in my own bibliography. If this annotated bibliography was written alongside a larger work, I would not have written as extensively, as I felt the need to explain the technology in order for the average reader to understand. While I liked Oliver’s organization, I believe having the 5-6 element tags can cause the annotations not to flow well and make the transitions from one section to another somewhat difficult. I struggled with the transitions in my own annotations and I consistently used 3-4 tags. If I could change anything in my own bibliography I would better organize my citation sections and reduce some of the content in the annotation regarding the technology.
