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Annotated Bibliographies: Start

A concise guide to creating annotated bibliographies

What is an Annotated Bibliography?

A bibliography lists information sources used to research your topic. Your bibliography will include the data (i.e., the author, title, publisher, etc.) that a reader would need to identify and locate the original source.

An annotation is a summary and/or evaluation of a source. An annotated bibliography includes a citation followed by a summary and/or evaluation of each of your sources. Your annotations may do one or more of the following:

  • Summarize: Some annotations simply 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?
  • Assess: After summarizing your source, an evaluation is helpful. Is it a useful? 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?
  • 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?

What does an annotated bibliography look like?

Each entry in an annotated bibliography has two components:

  • a bibliographic citation followed by
  • a short paragraph (an annotation) that includes concise descriptions and evaluations of each source.

The annotation usually contains a brief summary of content and a short analysis or evaluation. Depending on your assignment you may be asked to summarize, reflect on, critique, evaluate or analyze each source. While an annotation can be as brief as one sentence, a paragraph is more usual.

As with a normal reference list or bibliography, an annotated bibliography is usually arranged alphabetically according to the source authors’ last names.

An annotated bibliography summary should be about 100 - 200 words per citation—check with your instructor as this may vary between faculties and assessments. Please also check with your instructor about the elements each annotation should include.

Steps to writing an annotated bibliography

  • Choose your sources - locate and record citations to sources of research that may contain useful information and ideas on your topic.
  • Review the items that you’ve collected in your search.
  • Write the citation using the correct style.
  • Write the annotation.

Why Write an Annotated Bibliography?

Writing an annotated bibliography is excellent preparation for a research project. Just collecting sources for a bibliography is useful, but when you 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.

Annotated Bibliographies Examples in Specific Citation Styles (courtesy of Eastern Nazarene College)