Annotated bibliography for an article - Annotated Bibliographies - EasyBib Blog

If you are required to write an annotated bibliography, you are probably wondering things like: Why do I need to do this?

What should it look like? How do I go about creating one?

Where can I find examples? Why Write an Annotated Bibliography?

The purpose of writing an annotated bibliography is to provide your teacher or research director with an overview of the research that has been published on a particular topic. If a professor or teacher asks you to write an annotated bibliography, he or she expects you to take a good look at the sources that are available on a topic.

This project gives you a glimpse of the work a professional researcher would do. Every published article provides statements about prior research on the topic at hand.

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A teacher may require that you write an annotated bibliography as the first step of a big research assignment. You would most likely write an annotated bibliography first, and then follow with a research paper using the sources you've found.

But you may find that your annotated bibliography is an assignment on its own. An annotated bibliography can also stand alone as a research project, and some annotated bibliographies are published. As a student requirement, a stand-alone annotated bibliography one that is not followed by a research paper assignment would most likely be longer than a first-step version.

How to Cite a Journal Article in an Annotated Bibliography

What Should It Look Like? Typically, you would write the annotated bibliography just like a normal bibliography, but you will need to add one to five concise sentences under each bibliography entry.

Your sentences should summarize the source content and explain how or why the source is important. It will be up to you to decide why each item is important for your topic.

Writing an Annotated Bibliography for Articles

What is the primary way that this source helps us understand the topic better? Are there any aspects of the source that seem underdeveloped, lacking, misleading, or wrong? Is this source reliable? Is it written by someone who is an authority in the field?

Writing An Annotated Bibliography | Library

Does the source show any obvious biases? Since an annotated bibliography is meant to give an overview of research in a field, it helps to understand how the sources stand in relation to each other.

Think about things like: Do the sources have any overlap in terms of content, approach, or argument? What important differences are there between the sources?

Annotated bibliography

Do any of the sources quote from, cite, or respond to the ideas of others? Sometimes, annotated bibliographies are stand-alone works.

Very often, however, they are part of a larger research project.

If this is the case for you, spend a little time thinking about how each source contributes to your project. How will I use this source in my project?

Sample Annotated Bibliography

Will I use its findings to support my own? Will I argue with its central claim, or agree with it? Will I borrow its methods for my own analysis?

An annotated bibliography is designed to give an overview of research on a topic. It might be selective, choosing just a few representative sources. Or, it might be comprehensive, designed to summarize all of the major findings on a topic.

Either way, the sources should be reliable, high quality ones.