When you locate a source, first scan it quickly to determine if it has the kind of information you need. If not, move on to the next one. If it does, read the source. You can only write a good annotation if you know what is in the source. At the same time, you will be learning about your topic.

There are a great variety of web sites and electronic data bases, and it is often hard to determine exactly what kind of source you are looking at, and therefore it is hard to select the appropriate model to follow for MLA documentation. Do the best you can and give as much information as seems appropriate. Remember that your purpose is to guide your reader to the source your used.

There is no strict formula for writing an annotation. Your purpose is to characterize the source. You want to note what is useful so that when you are in the midst of writing and need information of a particular kind, you can look at your annotations and know where to find what you need.

In some cases, I have gone beyond simple annotation toward synopsis and note taking. For your purposes in the course, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Think about your annotated bibliography as a tool that will help in writing your essays. Make note of important arguments. Include essential facts. If certain words succinctly state a writer's ideas, quote them.

Whenever possible, relate one source to the next. For example, if two sources give the same facts or express the same opinions, make a note of this. In writing an argument, two witnesses are more convincing than one. On the other hand, if two sources state opinions that are diametrically opposed or interpret the same set of facts in opposite ways, make note of this.

Make hard copies of all your sources. Read the hard copies and mark them up. Underline important facts. Make notes in the margins about what information a paragraph contains. Devise your own marking system and use it consistently.

Keep your hard copies together and in some kind of order. Use a ring binder or pocket folders or file folders in a box. Be organized. There is nothing more exasperating than not being able to find a key document when you need it.

You should list your sources in alphabetical order.

"AAAS Policy Brief: Stem Cell Research." Programs and Policy. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 26 Aug 2004. 3 Aug 2005. http://www.aaas.org/spp/cstc/briefs/stemcells/index.shtml

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an advocate for embryonic stem cell research, and while the factual and unemotional tone of the article does not reflect the bias of an advocate, it does perhaps do so in the emphasis it gives to the selected facts.

The article is primarily an historical account of the stem cell controversy in a political context. It gives the dates of important governmental and political decisions in the development of the debate, including the enactment of key legislation, and focuses on the attempts of the National Institute of Health to interpret the law and to facilitate research within the restrictions imposed.

Particular attention is given to President Bush's decision to allow federal funding for existing lines of stem cells, as well as the opposition to his restrictive decision by those within the Republican Party. It talks about the existing stem cell lines currently available for federal funding and notes the various problems that inhibit their usefulness in research.

One section titled "Ethical Dispute" succinctly states the basic positions of the opposing sides. Those against the research say that the use of embryos left over from in vitro fertilization that would otherwise be destroyed "would still condone the destruction of embryos" and that "cells obtained from adults is just as promising."

Those supporting embryonic stem cell research say that "in the natural reproductive process, human eggs are often fertilized but fail to implant" and that while a fertilized egg "may have the potential for human life, [it] cannot be considered equivalent to a human being until it has at least been successfully implanted in a woman's uterus." This page was last updated on August 26, 2004, making it a year old.

Lauritzen, Paul. The Hastings center Report. March-April 2005 v35 i2 p25 (9). Infotrac. 3 Aug. 2005.

The Hasting Center describes itself as being "an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit bioethics research institute founded in 1969 to explore fundamental and emerging questions in health care, biotechnology, and the environment."

The report is a philosophical argument against stem cell research. Interestingly, it focuses on the the ethical questions raised by adult stem cell research rather than embryonic stem cell research. It is a profound and thoughtful presentation of the ethical questions raised by stem cell research that is throughly grounded in the literature and includes a reference list.

The author makes two basic arguments against stem cell research: stem cell therapies might "undermine the notion of a natural human life or erode the boundary between human and non-human species." The essay then discusses what it means to be human and to have a natural human life span and how therapies that could significantly extend life might have profound consequences for both society and the the psychology of the individual.

Lauritzen makes one point that is similar to what Thomas Shannon says in "Stem-Cell Research: How Catholic Ethics Guide Us." He too is concerned about "the social implications of a situation in which the wealthy are able to "buy" longer life spans while others cannot.

His second point of concern about the consequences of stem cell research and the therapies it may lead to is that we might destablize "the concept of nature generally and the appropriate treatment of any sentient life." From a purely scientific point of view the human body is "simply material to be manipulated and animals are seen as simply machine-like rather than as sentient beings. This attitude gives rise to the potential use of animals to grow tissues that can be used as transplants to humans. The blurring of the lines between what is purely human and partly human can have profound consequences for our concept of what it means to be human and on how society may regard such altered individuals.

Arguments opposed to stem cell research focus on the ethical issues involved while those supporting the research point to the practical benefits to be gained. However, it may be that in the long term, the consequences that result from creating "different" humans through the manipulation of nature and the exploitation of non-human animals may result in an unnatural world that is more problematic then the one we once knew.

Manjoo, Farhad. "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Stem Cell Debate." 8 June 2005. 3 Aug. 2005 LexisNexis.

This article states the argument for embryonic stem cell research while reflecting a strong bias against the position of the Bush administration and its conservative supporters in the Republican party. The bias is immediately evident in the loaded language that the author uses in describing the event in which President Bush advocated donating left over embryos to infertile couples while surrounded by children who had been given life in this way. He calls this event a "publicity stunt," and "a publicity ploy." He later details the reasons why this is an impractical way to deal with the large number of frozen embryos that currently exist.

However, in spite of the political bias evident throughout the article, it nevertheless provides good factual information and a detailed and reasoned argument against the current government policy of restricting federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to a minimal number of stem cell lines already in existence rather than making funding available for the development of new stem cell lines that might be derived from other frozen embryos left over from invetro fertilization.

It defines key terms, tells why existing stem cell lines may not be safe for development of therapeutic applications, and summarizes the ethical arguments against the research.

The author emphasizes the political context of the debate and has the obvious intent of demonstrating how President Bush and others opposed to federal funding for embryonic stem cell research have an inconsistent and ultimately indefensible position on the issue.

Morrow, Lance. "The Faustian Bargain of Stem Cell research." Time. Thursday, July 12, 2001. 30 July 2005. Http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,167312,00.html

Lance Morrow's essay in Time magazine expresses a warning against proceeding with stem cell research using embryonic stem cells. He has two basic arguments against such research. First, there is the idea that all new knowledge, and the miracles to be realized from it, also carry the possibilities of "monstrous possibilities, wicked abuse." Thus, the pure science that lead to a knowledge of how to split the atom resulted in the explosion of an atomic bomb at Hiroshima. The second is the slippery slope argument. The use of "unneeded frozen embryos at fertility clinics" that would otherwise be discarded may be rationalized as permissible since they are already destined for destruction, but this first step may lead to further rationalizations, perhaps ending with "human life brought into being entirely for the purpose of being cannibalized for parts."

Morrow's essay is erudite in that it places the issue in both an intellectual context of western thought (Faustian Bargain and Promethean Hubris )and in the context of recent European history. Here he refers to Franz Stangl who under the Nazis "began to organize humane little euthanasias" for the most damaged patients at a mental institution and went on to become "the kommandant of Treblinka" where he oversaw the annihilation of hundreds of thousands of Jews.

Although Morrow states that he can appreciate both the potential benefits of embryonic stem cell research as well as its potentialities for abuse, his tone clearly indicates a bias against such research.

National Institutes of Health. Stem Cell Information. 19 July 2004. 30 July 2005. http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics1.asp

The source of this web page is an agency of the federal government, and so the information should be valid and unbiased. The date of the last revision is July 19, 2004, so the information is a year old. The document has seven sections and provides basic information about stem cells and stem cell research. It includes some graphics. Its purpose is to serve as a primer for those interested in the subject. One section of particular interest describes how embryonic stem cells are grown in the laboratory. The document also explains the characteristics of stem cells and the differences between embryonic and adult stem cells, pointing out the advantages and the disadvantages of each kind in research and in potential therapeutic applications.

The source defines a number of key technical terms related to stem cell research, but does so in words that laymen can understand. It has a bibliography and links to other sites with information on the topic. This is an important document to study because it gives a lot of basic scientific information that will serve as a basis for understanding the ethical issues involved in stem cell research.

Reaves, Jessica. "The Great Debate Over Stem Cell Research." Time. Wednesday, July 11, 2001. 30 July 2005. http://www.time.com/time/health/printout/0,8816,167245,00.html

In this essay, Reaves attempts to articulate the issues involved in the debate over stem cell research and to place them in the context of the political debate that was ongoing in 2001 when President Bush restricted federal funding for this research. She notes that even members of the administration are split over the issue.

She says that the debate has created problems for anti abortion advocates. For them the central question becomes: "Is it possible to protect the strict boundaries inherent in the 'sanctity of life' and still harvest these [stem] cells to help the living among us?" She notes the pressure that is being exerted for research funding by high-profile activists, focusing greater attention on the pragmatic argument that the research can help save lives and prevent suffering.

But like Lance Morrow, Reaves notes the slippery slope argument. Although most stem cells used in research have come from embryos left over from in vitro fertilization, "scientists can also pull stem cells from aborted fetuses, first asking for signed consent from a patient who'd previously (and independently ) decided to terminate her pregnancy." She adds that "using stem cells from discarded embryos is one thing, but purposefully creating an embryo only to dismantle it is something else altogether."

The tone of this essay is more neutral then Morrow's and presents the conflicting views of the issue in an unbiased way.

Shannon, Thomas A. "Stem-Cell Research: How Catholic Ethics Guide Us." 4 Aug. 2005. http://www.americancatholic.org/newsletters/cu/ac0102.asp

An end note identifies the author as a Professor of Religion and social Ethics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. The essay presents a reasoned examination of the ethical issues surrounding stem cell research and explains why such research is unacceptable to the Catholic Church. The essay illustrates many characteristics of good academic writing and sound argument and is worth reading on these grounds alone. For example, it has a clear deductive organization with an explicit statement of intent in the introduction. It also presents in a clear and unbiased way the arguments for stem cell research and then counters these with arguments based on the teaching of the Catholic Church.

The essay is organized around two key ethical questions: "First, is the destruction of the very early embryo immoral? Second, if a vaccine or tissue is generated from these human embryonic stem cells would someone act unethically in using it?" In both cases, the answer according to the Church is that the acts are unethical.

Stem cell research is opposed by the Church because it violates the idea stated in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae that the "'human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception and therefore from the same moment his rights as a person must be recognized.'" Stem cell research violates this teaching because it necessarily involves the destruction of a blastocyst, the name for a fertilized egg after four or five days of development. Where the second ethical question is concerned, "The [Church's] basis for rejecting such procedures [as deriving vaccines from embryonic stem cells] is the recognition of the human embryo's being accepted as a full human person from the moment of conception and, therefore, having an intrinsic dignity and value that cannot be compromised in the name of other values."

Sinskey, Anthony J., Stan N Finkelstein, and Scott M. Cooper. "The Consequences of Limiting Stem Cell Research: Health and Economic considerations." Pharmaceutical Discovery. May 2005 v5 i4 p 22(2). Infotrac. 8 Aug. 2005.

The authors are academics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who are strong supports of embryonic stem cell research. They have written this article in response to Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's announcement that he "would propose legislation to criminalize some aspects of stem cell research." As the title of the article states, they present two arguments in support of stem cell research.

First, quoting Harold Varmus, past director of the National Institutes of Health, they write: "'that [stem cell] research has the potential to revolutionize the practice of medicine and improve the quality and length of life.'" In particular they note "that stem cells can be used to create disease cultures for drug testing." This would also have economic benefits because rather than buying a cancer line, scientists "can explore their own disease-related genes more quickly and more cheaply."

Indeed, this article emphasizes the economic benefits of stem cell research. In light of the federal restrictions on providing money for it, states have taken action to make the money available. California has done so, and the same has been proposed by a member of the Massachusetts legislature. Hence the announcement by Governor Mitt Romney and this counter argument by the authors.

They say that states that make funding available will become magnets to scientists who want to pursue stem cell research, and the enterprise will spur economic growth in those states. Based on a report by the Bank of Boston, they say that "investments lead to products, which lead to profits and new investment in the next generation of advancements. This is true for biotechnology and other research-driven industries."

It is doubtful that such economic arguments will hold much sway with those who raise moral objections to stem cell research; however, they are legitimate from a pragmatic point of view.

This article has a list of references. Pharmaceutical Discovery, appears to be an industry publication that would understandably be a supporter of any research that would lead to industry growth and profits.

Stem Cell Research: Funding for the Future or a Commitment to Morality. Duke University. 7 July 2005. http://www.duke.edu/web/pps114/project/10/

The source of this article is Duke University and so the information it contains can be accepted as valid and without any strong bias. It is useful in that it identifies the interest groups involved in the debate over stem cell research, naming those specifically in support of and in opposition to it. It also identifies those in congress and the Bush administration who support and oppose embryonic stem cell research, making the point that the supporters and opponents do not strictly follow party lines. The article discusses the political aspects of President Bush's 2001 compromise decision to allow federal funding for stem cell research, but only for a limited number (87) of existing stem cell lines.

It clearly states the primary argument in favor of stem cell research saying that these "experiments . . . could one day provide cures to some of the worst human diseases of our time." The article also notes a second important reason for allowing this research: "stem cell research would also help create new drugs because they would provide a human cell line along which these new drugs could be tested."

The article includes a poll of public opinion on stem cell research showing a breakdown of opinion among various religious, ideological, political, and racial groups as well as among those in favor of and opposed to abortion. In addition, there is a bibliography and links to the web sites of some of the interest groups involved in the debate.