What is a bibliography?

Often called a works cited list or reference list,

its a list, usually found at the end of your project, that displays all of the
sources that you used in your research project. In this list, you may have
websites, books, newspapers, magazines, or other types of sources that were
used.

Each listed source, also called a citation, shares information about the
author, title, publishing year, and other items. Citations are provided so that
others can find the sources themselves.

Sometimes instructors want you to include an annotated bibliography.

An annotated bibliography includes three items for each source:

the citation

a short summary of the source

your personal thoughts and insights from the source

The Citation

Create the citation in MLA, APA, or another style that your teacher
instructs you to cite in. Your teacher will tell you which style you should use.

MLA

APA

The Summary

Write a few sentences summarizing the source. What was it about?

What was the main point of it?

Your personal thoughts and insights

Was the source helpful for your particular assignment?

How did it help answer your research question(s)?

How was this source different than the other sources used?

Did the source change your thinking on the research topic?

How did the source affect you?

Organization:

Citations are listed in alphabetical order

Format your paper according to the MLA or APA guidelines (include the
link to the MLA and APA guideline pages)
According to the Purdue Online Writing Lab:
A bibliography is a list of sources (books, journals, websites, periodicals, etc.) one has used for researching a topic.
Bibliographies are sometimes called "references" or "works cited" depending on the style format you are using. A
bibliography usually just includes the bibliographic information (i.e., the author, title, publisher, etc.).
An annotation is a summary and/or evaluation.
Therefore, an annotated bibliography includes a summary and/or evaluation of each of the sources. Depending on
your project or the assignment, your annotations may do one or more of the following:

Summarize: Some annotations merely summarize the source. What are the main arguments? What is the
point of this book or article? What topics are covered? If someone asked what this article/book is about,
what would you say? The length of your annotations will determine how detailed your summary is.
For more help, see our handout on paraphrasing sources.

Assess: After summarizing a source, it may be helpful to evaluate it. Is it a useful source? How does it
compare with other sources in your bibliography? Is the information reliable? Is this source biased or
objective? What is the goal of this source?
For more help, see our handouts on evaluating resources.

Reflect: Once you've summarized and assessed a source, you need to ask how it fits into your research.
Was this source helpful to you? How does it help you shape your argument? How can you use this source
in your research project? Has it changed how you think about your topic?
Your annotated bibliography may include some of these, all of these, or even others. If you're doing this for
a class, you should get specific guidelines from your instructor.

Why should I write an annotated bibliography?

To learn about your topic: Writing an annotated bibliography is excellent preparation for a research project. Just
collecting sources for a bibliography is useful, but when you have to write annotations for each source, you're forced
to read each source more carefully. You begin to read more critically instead of just collecting information. At the
professional level, annotated bibliographies allow you to see what has been done in the literature and where your
own research or scholarship can fit. To help you formulate a thesis: Every good research paper is an argument. The
purpose of research is to state and support a thesis. So a very important part of research is developing a thesis that
is debatable, interesting, and current. Writing an annotated bibliography can help you gain a good perspective on
what is being said about your topic. By reading and responding to a variety of sources on a topic, you'll start to see
what the issues are, what people are arguing about, and you'll then be able to develop your own point of view.
To help other researchers: Extensive and scholarly annotated bibliographies are sometimes published. They
provide a comprehensive overview of everything important that has been and is being said about that topic. You may
not ever get your annotated bibliography published, but as a researcher, you might want to look for one that has been
published about your topic.

Format
The format of an annotated bibliography can vary, so if you're doing one for a class, it's important to ask for specific
guidelines.
The bibliographic information: Generally, though, the bibliographic information of the source (the title, author,
publisher, date, etc.) is written in either MLA or APA format. For more help with formatting, see our MLA handout. For
APA, go here:APA handout.

The annotations: The annotations for each source are written in paragraph form. The lengths of the annotations can
vary significantly from a couple of sentences to a couple of pages. The length will depend on the purpose. If you're
just writing summaries of your sources, the annotations may not be very long. However, if you are writing an
extensive analysis of each source, you'll need more space.
You can focus your annotations for your own needs. A few sentences of general summary followed by several
sentences of how you can fit the work into your larger paper or project can serve you well when you go to draft.

For More Info / Source(s)

(Links open in new window.)

Annotated Bibliographies

How to Prepare An Annotated Bibliography in APA and MLA (from Cornell)

Example of APA Annotated Bibliography

Answered by Katie Hutchison

Other Answers / Comments (1)

1.

It was useful for me. Thanks.

by John7892 on May 08, 2015.

Improve this answer or post a comment

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