When writing a college paper, your professor may ask you to include a bibliography to reference the works you have cited. Bibliographies are important because they give others the credit they deserve for indirectly assisting you in completing your paper. But sometimes, the professor might want more than just a simple bibliography with a list of citations and ask you to create an annotated bibliography.
If you don’t know what an annotated bibliography is or how to write one, then you have come to the right place.
What Is an Annotated Bibliography?
To annotate something means to provide explanatory notes for that thing; it could be text or a diagram. In this case, the thing that you need to annotate is the bibliography. The reason why you may be asked to annotate a bibliography is to show how authoritative, accurate or relevant the citation is regarding the topic of discussion in the paper. You can create an annotated bibliography for any source, including articles, blogs, journals, periodicals, and videos, just as long as it is followed by a summary of 100-150 words of explanatory text.
How It Differs from an Abstract?
People often confuse an annotation and an abstract. This is understandable because an abstract can also summarize a paper, website, book, and other kinds of sources of information. But what sets them apart is the fact that an abstract is just meant to summarize the writing in a descriptive manner, while an annotation does it in a critical manner.
How to Write an Annotated Bibliography?
Now that we know what an annotation is, we can go ahead and discuss how to write one. Since writing an annotation is different from an abstract, you need to combine your research skills along with your intellectual and critical analysis skills to compose an effective annotated bibliography.
Research for Relevant Sources
The first thing you need to do is to use your research skills to search for the relevant sources of information. Look for books, journals, periodicals, videos, and websites with the relevant information you need for your paper.
Review the Sources
After you have compiled the list of resources you will use, briefly review them and select the sources that offer diverse views on the topic of your paper. If the source you are using has an abstract, even better, as that will speed up the process of writing the annotated bibliography.
Cite the Sources
The next step is to write the citations using the referencing style specified by your professor. The two major styles that you will most likely use are APA Style or MLA Style. Each of these styles has their own distinct ways of writing a citation that you must definitely pay attention to. Don’t forget to arrange the citations in alphabetical order (while this is good practice, it might not be necessary; it’s best to check with your professor beforehand).
Include the Annotation
As explained earlier, the citation should be followed by an explanatory 100-150 words. The annotation can include the purpose, summary, audience, relevance, features, and any strengths and weakness of the source of information you are using.
Example of an Annotated Bibliography Written in APA Format
Lamanna, F. Lenormand, M. María Henar Salas-Olmedo, M. H., Romanillos, G. Gonçalves, B.,
& Ramasco, J. J. (2018). Immigrant community integration in world cities. PLOS. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0191612
The authors and researchers collected and analyzed data obtained from geo-localized tweets coming from 53 of the world’s most popular cities. The authors and researchers did this in an effort to test their hypothesis that today’s major cities are becoming increasingly diverse culturally due to the process of accelerated globalization. They also looked into how social polarization and spatial segregation are affecting the rate of integration of immigrant communities. Because these two factors can affect the rate at which globalization occurs, the authors and researchers also looked at how they have changed over time and what has been done to address these problems and if the solutions are working.
Example of an Annotated Bibliography Written in MLA Format
Lamanna, Fabio., et al. (2018). Immigrant community integration in world cities. PLOS.
Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0191612
The authors and researchers collected and analyzed data obtained from geo-localized tweets coming from 53 of the world’s most popular cities. The authors and researchers did this in an effort to test their hypothesis that today’s major cities are becoming increasingly diverse culturally due to the process of accelerated globalization. They also looked into how social polarization and spatial segregation are affecting the rate of integration of immigrant communities. Because these two factors can affect the rate at which globalization occurs, the authors and researchers also looked at how they have changed over time and what has been done to address these problems and if the solutions are working.
The next time your professor asks for an annotated bibliography, don’t panic and think you are being punished. As you can see, writing an annotated bibliography is not all that difficult. The concept is simple because all you need to do is to cite the source as you normally would and include a brief explanatory paragraph. But if you still think this is a lot of work for just a bibliography (as many students do since it is one of the most hated aspects of writing a paper) or feeling too overwhelmed to compile it yourself, you can always let an expert write a custom annotated bibliography for you.