Annotated Bibliography

Atkinson, David "Madbull RX7" February 11, 2012 via Flickr
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What follows is an annotated bibliography in the ASME citation style for sources related to the General Motors ignition recall. The picture of Mad Mike's" Madbull" RX7 is simply here for your enjoyment.

Atiyeh, C., 2014, "GM Ignition Switch Engineer Speaks after Months of Silence: 'I did my job.'," Car and Driver
The purpose of this Car and Driver article is, as a part of a large series of articles on the recalls, to inform car enthusiast readers about the situation. The thesis of the article is that while Ray DeGiorgio may be an easy target for the press to crucify, he really just represents the entire attitude that was endemic at General Motors. The article describes DeGiorgio's role in designing the flawed ignition switch with a segway provided by his recent (at the time of press) comments to the media. The article neatly summarizes the occurrences of the recall controversy so far and ends upon the reflection that DeGiorgio likely ought to have a less dismissive attitude about his role in the failed design as it lead to numerous deaths.

Vlasic, B., 2014 "G.M. 'Bullied' Manufacturer Over Poorly Designed Part, Email Says," The New York Times, November 22, 2014, B1
The purpose of the New York Times article is to communicate information about the GM recall controversy to an audience of general readers. The thesis of this article was that General Motors bullied a outside manufacturer to create a part that everyone knew was sub-standard. The information in this article was gleaned from internal emails both between and within Delphi Mechatronics and General Motors that were released as the result of a federal investigation. The key ideas of this article are that General Motors knew all along that the parts were defective as did the supplier yet the General forced the supplier to produce them regardless.

Chao, G.H., Iravani, S.M.R., Savaskan, R.C., "Quality Improvement Incentives and Product Recall Cost Sharing Contracts," Management Science, 55, (7), pp. 1122-1138
The purpose of this article is to educate the reader on methods by which product recall costs may be shared between OEMs and outside suppliers. This article is written for an audience of technically experienced management professionals. The thesis of this article is that there should be different cost sharing agreements based on partial or complete root cause analysis. This is an academic and intellectual paper. This paper was written because the authors see an expansion of subcontracting certain jobs to outside companies in the current global economy and the need to ensure quality control as well as a fair way to deal with product recalls should they affect an outside supplier's products.

Steizor, R., "THE CONSUMER ALWAYS HAS RIGHTS: ENVISIONING A PROGRESSIVE FREE MARKET: (Still) "Unsafe at Any Speed: Why Not Jail for Auto Executives?," Harvard Law and Policy Review, 9, (443)
The purpose of this article is to describe the events that lead and were part of the damaging General Motors ignition switch recall for readers involved in law or the legal profession. The thesis of this article is that automotive executives were highly culpable in the process that lead to the failed and dangerous design so why should be not hold them responsible? This article was written based on information learned from in-depth sources such as the Valukas report etc. The article is best summarized as presenting a damning investigation of the ignition switch recall and then asking why we don't properly incriminate those at fault.

 D. Car, “GM Recall News: GM refuses 91% of faulty ignition switch claims,” Twitter, 2015. [Online]. Available at: https://twitter.com/deathtrapartcar/status/636283368577957888. [Accessed: Jun-2015].

The purpose of this post was to share a news article with @Deathtrap Art Car's Twitter followers. The attached article represents GM as being very callous as it is ignoring the issues of it's customers. That article gets its information from the Associated Press. Ultimately, if you read all of @Deathtrap Art Car's tweets, you would glean a lot of information about the GM recalls with a decidedly (but also well deserved) anti-General Motors spin.

 “@mtbarra answer this. What if 1 of the #GmRecall Crash victims was ur Son? Would u stand up and Lie/Coverup for #Gm? What? NO? Thn y u lie?,” Twitter, Sep-2015. [Online]. Available at: https://twitter.com/1984cdn/status/619279691090825216. [Accessed: Jun-2015].

This post was clearly an attempt to vent anger and perhaps stir up the anger of others toward Mary Barra and General Motors. The likely audience for this post was drivers of General Motors cars and in particular those that have had friends and family injured or killed by the negligently designed parts. This post was in particular about the lies and half-truths and cover ups that General Motors has spewed.

Calamur, K., 2014 "Reports: GM Ordered 500,000 Ignition Switches Before the Recall Announcement," National Public Radio
The purpose of this article is to implicate General Motors in having prepared for a  recall regarding a deadly flaw before it was announced to the public. The article cites the Wall Street Journal's findings that the company ordered 500,000 ignition switches a significant time before the public was notified and that based on her previous position before she was CEO, Mary Barra should have known about this (which would contradict her previous deposition to Congress). I think this is a useful article to be able to pull from in the future.

Associated Press, 2015 "Judge Reverses Manslaughter Conviction Due to GM Ignition," New York Times
This article is intended to indicate how General Motors' negligence caused someone to be wrongly convicted of a serious crime and thus served jail time for an accident that she had little control over. The article quotes an attorney who is exasperated that GM did not release the recall information as soon as it was available which would have likely impacted the driver's guilty plea. I may use this article in the Quick Reference Guide but it is less likely.

Griswold, A., 2014 "GM Recalls Soar Past 20 Million. Why Don't Consumers Care?," Slate
This article laments consumers seeming lack of care about the stunning safety risks associated with the General Motors recalls because at the point that the article was written, GM was recalling more and more vehicles while year to year monthly sales were climbing month after month for the company. The only unique thing that this article really finds is the incredulous situation that has sales increasing as serious safety issues are uncovered. I think this article may have some use for my Quick Reference Guide though it may be limited.

2014 "Watch Jon Stewart Explain How GM's Recall Math Adds up to 'F**k it!'," Huffington Post
This article is about a video so I will focus in the video as well. Jon Stewart applies his usual satire to the disconcerting situation where General Motors decided that a 57 cent improvement wasn't worth it when it might have saved lives. Stewart used satire and humor to effectively explain the ridiculousness of the situation. I think that this video is very effective in describing the situation in a way that simple written text cannot and I think that therefore I most likely will use in in my QRG.

An example of an annotated biblography in the ASME style can be found here.
And now, because that took a lot of time, I'm going to post a much more uplifiting rally photo.

Millich, Jason "Andrew Hawkeswood, Audi Quattro" May 18, 2013 via Flickr
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I was not able to find anyone who wrote citations in ASME. Namrata, however, wrote her annotated bibliography  in the IEEE style which is for Electrical Engineers but seems to also be an acceptable for Mechanical Engineers. Additionally, the citations seem to be identical. I also commented on Elliot's Annotate Bibliography. He used the American Institute of Physics (AIP) citations. From this, I realized that while there may be some strange semantic reasons to have different citation styles for different fields as different forms of media can have more or less importance, most work almost exactly the same and with a little bit of common sense, it is easy to find a source from any citation style.