Arvanitis 1 Emily Arvanitis Mr.

Borrerro ENGL 1101 October 30, 2012

Annotated Bibliography
Source 1 1. MLA Citation: Whalen, Zach, and Laurie N. Taylor. "Part II. Playing and the Past." Playing the Past: History and Nostalgia in Video Games. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2008. 111-77. Print. 2. Annotation: This book, mostly part 2 talks about the history of video games and how they were developed. This book is better than the others I have looked at because it gives you an idea of not only what video games can do for someone, but also why people like them so much. It tells how they came to be and how some video games can be used for educational purposes. In this section of the book it tells where the idea of video games came from and how they are developing more each generation. This is an interesting book to use because it gives different peoples outlooks on certain games and how video gaming became popular. 3. Key Quotes: These nostalgic gaming experiences draw upon a range of cultural influences but also bypass linguistic and regional differences through the

Arvanitis 2 iconography, simplicity, and interactivity common to mobile games (Whalen 115). In short, most games major functions are killing time and defeating boredom (Whalen 117). Navigate to Extras and youll find games four popular games you can play anywhere, like when youre waiting for the movie to start (Whalen 129). 4. Evaluation: This was a good source to use because there are notes on where the editors collected the information from and all of the sources are credited within the book. The book contains different views on video games and describes the history and how they were derived from computer games and cell phones. Source 2 1. MLA Citation: Galloway, Alexander R. "Origins of the First-Person Shooter." Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2006. 39-69. Print. 2. Annotation: This books tells how video games have been a feature of many cultures for more than twenty years and how they relate to other media such as movies and music. In this book the video game is considered a distinct cultural demand that has new and unique features like certain graphics and gaming concepts. The author goes into detail about how many people are beginning to play video games rather than

Arvanitis 3 read books or even talk to people. It also talks about the way graphics are chosen for certain games and how they can imitate real life or be a complete fantasy. 3. Key Quotes: They (video games) are no less different as two dimensions are from three (Galloway 39). One of the most common uses of the subjective shot is to show the optical perspective of a drugged, drowsy, drunk, or otherwise intoxicated character (Galloway 46). The first-person subjective perspective is used in film primarily to create a sense of alienation, otherness, detachment, or fear (Galloway 56). So, while video games are responsible for mainstreaming the first-person shooter it is clear that the shot itself was invented in the cinema (Galloway 58). 4. Evaluation: This wasnt the best source to use but it was okay because it compared video games to movies. It had some good points about how the cinema and gaming world are very closely related. This book also went into detail about certain graphics and relating video games to reality. Source 3 1. MLA Citation: Brown, Harry J. Videogames and Education. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2008. Print.

Arvanitis 4 2. Annotation: This book talks about how video games not only have an impact on the average teenager today, but also on politic, ethical, and religious ways of teaching and learning. It shows major trends in game design, public controversies involving video games, and how video games affect peoples literacy today. It gives criticism on how people are beginning to pay more attention to their TVs or computers than they should, but how that can be valuable. This book in specific gives examples of how video games are becoming more educational and how they can help in an everyday classroom. 3. Key Quotes: Video games are both wisdom contests and narrative cosmogonies. They test our ingenuity and intellect while they immerse us in an imaginary world textured by narratives (Brown 5). Like riddles, adventure games begin with undiscovered meaning, a locked door, and the dark entrance to a cave they require us to search for the key and to do so we must inhabit the world it evokes (Brown 6). Each video game creates a formal narrative system capable of generating an infinite number of stories (Brown 7). In attempt to define an ideal form for interactive storytelling, the International Game Developers Association loos back, past the most popular and commercially successful games of the last three decades, to tabletop role-playing games (Brown 9). 4. Evaluation:

Arvanitis 5 This was a quality source because it included a very detailed timeline of video games and important historical events that happened that impacted the development of certain popular video games. It went into great detail about how video games have their own language and how the gaming world can sometimes be very difficult to understand. Source 4 1. MLA Citation: Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. New York, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003. Print. 2. Annotation: This book is from the perspective of a professor who knows that video games are controversial, but would rather see the positive side of them. It talks about how individuals can develop a sense of identity in a video game, how an outsider and grasp the meaning of certain words used in the gamer world, and how people perceive gamers and why they have a love for online games. In this book how someone sees the real world versus a fantasy or gaming world and how the literacy in each of those is different but how they affect each other. This book talks about how people relate the world they live in to their video game world and how most gamers prefer a fantasy world to the real world. 3. Key Quotes: An academic discipline, or ant other semiotic domain, for that matter, is not primarily content, in the sense of facts and principles. It is rather primarily a lived and historically changing set of distinctive social

Arvanitis 6 practices. It is in these practices that content is generated, debated, and transformed via certain distinctive ways of thinking, talking, valuing, acting, and often writing and reading (Gee 72). Learning is a deep human need, like reading or writing, and like all such needs, video games are just as good (Gee 102). Reading and writing should be viewed not as mental achievements but as social and cultural practices with economic, historical, and political implications. Many do not believe this, but I say video games can do the same (Gee 8). Children are not expected to read texts with little or no knowledge about any social practices within which those texts are used. Video games can show children rather than have them be read (Gee 16). 4. Evaluation: This is a credible source because it has sources within it and the quotes are cited. However, some of it may be a little biased because it is mostly from professors point of view and its more persuasive it seems rather than factual. It was very informative of how literacy and video games are related, though, so it was pretty helpful. Source 5 1. MLA Citation: Paumgarten, Nick. "Master of Play." Library Reference Center Plus. Conde Nast Publications, 20 Dec. 2012. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. <http://ehis.ebscohost.com.librarylink.uncc.edu>.

Arvanitis 7 2. Annotation: This article is about a Japanese video game designer from the company Nintendo. It reflects on the game Super Mario Bros. in particular and the development of the Nintendo Wii. It also goes into the cultural impact of video games on different cultures and they way some video games are viewed. It starts off telling about the designer when he was a child and the wooden toys he would play with and how he developed ideas to create animated games and turn them into worldwide video games. 3. Key Quotes: Fishermen have a saying, in reference to the addictive sensation of a fish hitting your line: The tug is the drug. Gamers, thrill to the pull, that mysterious ability that good games have a making of you want to play them, and keep playing them (Miyamoto 4) 4. Evaluation: This source was useful because it went into detail about how some specific video games have impacted literacy and the way video games are viewed in some cultures. It may not be the most credible source though because it was only from one mans perspective.