An annotated bibliography gives you an opportunity to summarize, evaluate, and record publication information for your sources before drafting your research paper. You summarize each source to understand its main ideas; you evaluate each source for accuracy, quality, and relevance. Finally, you reflect, asking yourself how the source will contribute to your research project. (See the sample annotated bibliography entry in 52f. See also two complete annotated bibliographies, one written for a composition class and one for an economics class.)
Key features
Thinking ahead: Presenting or publishing
You may be asked to submit your annotated bibliography electronically. If this is the case, and if any of your sources are from the Web, you may want to format some of the text as hyperlinks to make it easier for your readers to access the sources if they need to do so.
Writing your annotated bibliography
Explore |
For each source, begin by brainstorming responses to questions such as the following.
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Draft |
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Revise |
Ask reviewers for specific feedback. Here are some questions to guide their comments.
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