Summarize Sources in an Annotated Bibliography
In addition to complete citation information, an annotated bibliography provides a brief note — two or three sentences long — about each of your sources. Consider your purposes for creating an annotated bibliography, and tailor the content, focus, and length of your annotations accordingly.
- In some writing projects, you will submit an annotated bibliography to your instructor for review and comment. In this situation, your instructor will most likely expect a clear description of the content of each source and some indication of how you might use the source.
- In other writing projects, the annotated bibliography serves simply as a planning tool — a more detailed version of a working bibliography. As a result, your annotations might highlight key passages or information in a source, suggest how you can use information or ideas from the source, or emphasize relationships between sources.
- In still other projects, the annotated bibliography will be the final result of your efforts. In such cases, you would write your annotations for your readers, keeping their purposes, needs, interests, and backgrounds in mind.
An annotated bibliography is a useful tool even if you aren’t required to submit it for a grade. By turning your working bibliography into an annotated bibliography, you can remind yourself of each source’s information, ideas, and arguments and how the source might be used in your document.
The annotated bibliography below provides information that an instructor could use to assess a student’s progress on a writing project.
Part of Ali Bizzul’s annotated bibliography