6.6 Annotated Bibliography
What’s an Annotated Bibliography?
A very common way to organize research in the academic world, in all disciplines, is by creating an Annotated Bibliography for each of your sources. An annotated bibliography is a basic summary of the main ideas, claims, and arguments of your source or author, in addition to the MLA (or other formatting style) citation of the source.
Why Write an Annotated Bibliography?
- Writing an annotated bibliography is excellent preparation for a research-based essay or project. Simply collecting sources for a bibliography is useful, but when writers have to write annotations for each source, they are forced to read each source more carefully. In the process, they gain a deeper understanding of the source in relation to the assignment and other sources. They begin to read more critically instead of just collecting information.
- At the professional level, annotated bibliographies enable individuals to understand the existing literature and determine how their own research or scholarship can contribute.
- Writing an annotated bibliography allows you to clarify your own stance and begin to revise your working thesis, or initial answer to your research question. Every good research paper is an argument. The purpose of research is to help formulate and support a thesis. This means it’s essential to develop and refine a working thesis that is debatable, interesting, and relevant to current issues.
- Writing an annotated bibliography can help writers gain a good perspective on what is being said about the topic. By reading and responding to a variety of sources on a topic, writers will start to see what the issues are, what people are arguing about, and what background information supports the topic. Then, writers will be able to develop their own informed perspectives.
Apply It
Use the following form to create your assessments of each source following the guidelines discussed in this chapter:
Putting It All Together
After completing your assessments, use that information to compose a document that includes a citation and 2-3 paragraphs about each source:
- Summary: What is the source’s title, and who is the author? What are the main arguments? What is the point of this source? What topics are covered? If someone asked what this source is about, what would you say? Make certain that the summary follows the order of the source and completely represents it while remaining brief.
- Assessment: Give specific examples and explain why the source is or is not useful to you based on your analysis of the source’s authority, currency, relevance, accuracy, and bias. Give examples of the strengths and weaknesses of your source. Explain how the source compares with other sources in your bibliography. Consider why the information in the source is or is not reliable.
- Reflection: Consider how your source aligns with your research. Explain why this source was or was not helpful to you. Give examples and explain how and why the source helps you shape your argument (refer to the source itself). Give examples and explain how and why you will use this source in your research project or assignment (refer to the source specifically with quotations or paraphrased text that you might use in your paper). How has the source changed what you think about your topic?
Attribution
“Annotated Bibliography” by Jackie Hendricks, Amy Lueck, Loring Pfeiffer, and Maura Tarnoff is adapted from “Organizing Your Research: Annotated Bibliography” from Reading and Writing Your World by Dan Curtis-Cummins and Jolie Goorjian, used under CC BY 4.0. “Annotated Bibliography” is licensed under CC-BY 4.0.
