How to prepare an annotated bibliography
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What is it?
o A list of citations for books, articles, and documents
o Each citation is followed by a short description of what the citation contains
Annotations vs Abstracts
o Abstracts are purely descriptive summaries
o Annotations are descriptive plus critical
Research needs to be broad at first, and then you narrow.
The process
o First, locate and record citations to books, periodicals, and documents that may contain
useful information and ideas on your topic
o Briefly examine and review the actual items. Then choose those works that provide a
variety of perspectives on your topic
o Cite the book, article, or document using the appropriate style
o Write a concise annotation that summarizes the central theme and scope of the book or
article. Include one or more sentences that
 Evaluate the authority or background of the author
 Comment on the intended audience
 Compare or contrast this work with another you have cited
 Explain how this work illuminates your bibliography topic
Same Annotation
o Information about the author of the article; the point of view of the author/scholar;
school of thought;
o What kind of article is it… literary criticism, historical piece, biographical, etc…
What an annotation should include
o Complete bibliographic info
o Some or all of the following
 Info to explain the authority and/or qualification of the author
 Scope and main purpose of the work
 Any biases that you detect
 Included audience and level of reading difficulty
 The relationship if any to other works in the area of study
 A summary comment
Turn in
o Research topic
o Lens
o Research question
o MLA format
o 5 annotated sources