Writing an Annotated Bibliography for a Paper
Key Takeaways
- An annotated bibliography includes short paragraphs under each source to explain its importance and content.
- Writing an annotated bibliography helps provide an overview of all articles and books on a subject.
- A standalone annotated bibliography can be an assignment that showcases your research work.
An annotated bibliography is an expanded version of a regular bibliography—those lists of sources you find at the end of a research paper or book. The difference is that an annotated bibliography contains an added feature: a paragraph or annotation under each bibliographical entry.
The purpose of the annotated bibliography is to provide the reader with a complete overview of the articles and books that have been written about a certain subject. Learning some background about annotated bibliographies—as well as a few key steps to writing one—will help you to quickly create an effective annotated bibliography for your assignment or research paper.
Annotated Bibliography Features
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The annotated bibliography gives your readers a glimpse of the work a professional researcher would do. Every published article provides statements about prior research on the topic at hand.
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: It can also stand alone as a research project, and some annotated bibliographies are published. 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 It Should Look
Write the annotated bibliography just like a normal bibliography, but add between one and five concise sentences under each bibliographical entry. Your sentences should summarize the source content and explain how or why the source is important. Things you might mention include whether the:
- Thesis of the source is one you support or don’t support
- Author has a unique experience or point of view related to your topic
- Source provides a sound basis for a paper you intend to write, leaves some questions unanswered, or has a political bias
