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An annotated bibliography provides a brief account of the available research
on a given topic.
It is a list of research sources that includes concise descriptions and
evaluations of each source.
How is an annotation different from an abstract?
While an abstract also summarizes an article, book, website,
or other type of publication, it is purely descriptive.
Although annotations can be descriptive.
They also include distinctive features about an item.
Then, what is annotated bibliography?
An annotated bibliography is an organized list of sources, like a reference list.
It differs from a straightforward bibliography in that each reference is
followed by a paragraph length annotation, usually 100 to 200 words in length.
An annotated bibliography might review the literature of a particular subject,
demonstrate the quality and depth of reading that you have done,
exemplify the scope of sources available just such as journals,
books, web sites and magazine articles.
Highlight sources that may be of interest other readers or researchers.
Explore and organize sources for further research.
You need to consider carefully the text that you select for
your annotated bibliography.
Keep the full length questions in mind to help you clarify your choices.
What topic or problem am I investigating?
What question or questions am I exploring?
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Identify the aim of your literature research.
What kind of material am I looking at and why?
Am I looking for journal articles,
reports, policies or primary historical data?
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Am I being judicious in my selection of texts?
Does each text relate to my research topic or assignment requirements?
What are the essential or key texts on my topic?
Am I finding them?
Are the sources valuable or often referred to in other texts?
There are two major types of annotated bibliographies, descriptive or
informative, and analytical or critical.
A descriptive or informative annotated bibliography describes or
summarizes a source as does an abstract.
It describes why the source is useful for
researching a particular topic or question, its distinctive features.
In addition, it describes the author's main arguments and
conclusions without evaluating what the author says or concludes.
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An analytical or critical annotation not only summarizes the material,
it analyzes what is being said.
It examines the strength and
weaknesses in what is presented, as well as describing the applicability of
the authors' conclusions to the research being conducted.
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Now you're ready to begin writing your own annotated bibliography.
Choose your sources, so
before writing your annotated bibliography, you must choose the sources.
This involves doing research just like for any other project.
Locate records to materials that may apply to your topic.
Then you need to review the items.
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Article experts are helpful in this process.
Then you need to write the citation and annotation.
When writing your annotation, the complete citation should always come first and
the annotation follows.
Depending on the type of annotated bibliography you are writing, you will
want to include either the purpose of the work or summary of its content.
For what type of audience the work is written, its relevance to the topic.
Any special or unique features about the material, the strengths,
weaknesses, or biases in the material.
Remember, the citations themselves must be formatted
properly according to either APA, MLA, or Chicago Style, for example.
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Content over annotated bibliography,
an annotation may contain all or part of the following elements,
depending on the word limit and the content of the sources you are examining.
Provide the full bibliographic citation.
Indicate the background of the authors.
Indicate the content or scope of the text, outline the main argument,
indicate the intended audience, identify the research methods if applicable,
identify any conclusions made by the author or
the authors, discuss the reliability of the text.
Highlight any special features of the text that were unique or
helpful, charts or graphs.
Discuss the relevance or usefulness of the text for your research.
Point out in what way the text relates to the themes and concepts in your article.
State the strength and limitations of the text.
And present your view or reaction to the text.
This is a sample of an annotated bibliography.
In the sample annotation each element is marked.
Elena BazanovaDirector of the Language Training and Testing Center
