Annotated Bibliography

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McKendrick, Joe, "Cloud-First Policies: Zero-Based Budgeting For Technology." Forbes.com (2016) Accessed October 26, 2016.

While not technically an academic source, I feel that people who read our article will not be too put off seeing as though it came from Forbes. I chose this article because I thought it provided good info on how zero-based budgeting can be used in different outlets as well as how it's already evolving into new forms. In the article the author writes about this new form of budgeting going around technology focused companies, he uses Amazon's web services as an example. It's called Cloud-First policies, and its essentially a new term for zero-based budgeting that big enterprises are using nowadays. I thought this would be a good article for our wiki page because it brings the idea of zero-based budgeting into 2016.

Katz D. Starting from Scratch. Cfo [serial online]. November 2015;31(9):34. Available from: MasterFILE Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed October 26, 2016.

I found this source from Texas State's academic research database so it should very reputable, the only problem with using it is that it will be difficult for the average wikipedia user to be able to find where I got the info from. In this article by David Katz, zero-based budgeting is brought front and center as you get to see big name companies that most Americans know that use this system. This article describes how to reverse a companies traditional budgeting system and how it has worked out for large food processing companies such as Heinz and Coca-Cola. I think this article will be beneficial to our wiki page as it gives examples of how to switch to a zero-based budgeting system.

Bunch B, Tang C. A RESPONSE TO "ZERO-BASED BUDGETING IN CHINA: EXPERIENCES OF HUBEI PROVINCE. Journal Of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management [serial online]. Winter2006 2006;18(4):511-515. Available from: Business Source Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed October 26, 2016.

This article also come from the Texas State research database, there fore it will also be hard for the average wikipedia user to find, but I feel that the info in the article is really good. This article was written by Mr. Bunch in response to an article describing the experiences that the Hubei Province in China had while implementing zero-based budgeting into the government. I was not able to find the actual paper that this article was written in response to, but the response is able to give some good info on the history of zero-based budgeting and some of the pros and cons it has when put into use. I think this source will be good for our wiki page as it goes in depth into how well zero-based budgeting has worked in the U.S. in the past, and how it works currently in Hubei Province.

Rumbol P. Phil Rumbol: Zero-based budgeting is time consuming and debilitating. Marketing Week (Online Edition)[serial online]. February 24, 2016;:1. Available from: Business Source Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed October 26, 2016.

As with the last two sources, this one also came from the Texas State database. The title of this source may seem counter productive to trying to sell the idea of zero-based budgeting, but I believe a wikipedia page should never be devoted to only spreading praise about a particular subject, person, or place. A good and educational piece should show both the pros and cons regarding whatever topic it's about, and I believe this article by Phil Rumbol does a good job of showing the other side of zero-based budgeting and how its not always a perfect fit in all circumstances. This article discusses a number of situations that occur in large enterprises where the logic of zero-based budgeting just doesn't make sense. I think this source will be useful to our wiki page as it provides a look into some of the criticisms of zero-based budgeting.

Timmermans, Kris, "Zero-Based Budgeting: No Longer Just a Crises Tool." CFO.com (2015) Accessed October 26, 2016.

I spent awhile going through a lot of web articles and found most of them to be really shallow. This source was one of the few articles that I found that offered some good info on how companies have adapted the concept of zero-based budgeting into the modern sphere of policies and how it is no longer just a tool to be used when crises happen in a company or form of government. Mr. Timmermans argues that zero-based budgeting a great policy and gives some good statistics that companies have provided which show how the policy has benefitted them. I once again think, as I have with some of my other sources, that this article does a good job of showing companies using this form of policy and how it has worked out for them. It gives a lot of good info and is one of the better web-based articles that is easy to look up.

Article Evaluation

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After reading through our article for the first time, I came away still not having a good grasp of what Zero-Based Budgeting actually is. The person who previously worked on our article had obviously done a lot of research on the topic, but the way they structured the article, as well the way they wrote in general was a little distracting. It seemed to me that they were trying to be overly scholarly when writing, but did not actually have the writing skills to back up the odd language they were using. Making the article much more digestable for the average reader should be the main focus of this project I believe. Structuring the article in a better way should also be a top priority, because as of now the article is very blocky and chopped up.

On top of being overly academic and hard to read, the article's authors may have referenced a lot of their points in an odd way. Only two of the fifteen references that the previous authors used are accessible by the general public. I'm not sure if this or isn't a problem, but it makes it hard for the average person to know whether or not the information they are reading is legit. On top of this, I believe there are way too many block quotes in this article, the entire last section of the article is essentially one very large block quote from a reference that the users can't even click on or see.

Overall I'd say the article is neutral, but very poorly written. As I said earlier, our main tasks should be to clean up the article in structure formatting and to write the article in much more digestible language. We should also find some better sources that people will be able to find easily in order to check our statements.

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