Writing your first research article can be a challenge. Learning to discover and use sources and then mention them properly is an effort that many new students find overwhelming. Some professors like to add even more to this stress by requesting not just a research paper but an accompanying annotated bibliography. Since most students have never encountered the term annotated bibliography before entering post-secondary education, this additional requirement tends to leave students everywhere scratching their heads and wondering why they ever thought earning a degree was a good idea.
If you are presently starting to get research skills, you perhaps don’t even understand how to make a bibliography, let alone how to write an annotated bibliography. What the heck is an annotated bibliography, anyway, and why is your professor so focused on your learning to create one? Didn’t you acquire enough skills writing the cursed card? What does this teacher want from you? Where does it end? Madness! The audacity of this professor! That’s enough to make you want to quit.
Don’t despair, dear student. Because, like numerous things in academic, the term annotated bibliography is far less complex than it seems. Below we present a simple guide on how to write an annotated bibliography. We’ve also included a brief rationale to explain your professor’s reason for making you take on this annoying extra task in the first place.
What is an annotation? An annotation is essentially a brief summary of a source’s content and topic, as well as an explanation of how that source fits into the topic you’re making in your article. Annotations are naturally written straight after the reference list entry for a source and naturally should not exceed 150 words. The goal is short and concise. Be sure to check your professor’s guidelines, as they may have different expectations for the duration.
Annotations should not be confused with abstracts. Although both are short summaries of particular works, an abstract accompanies an article in a journal, providing a brief description of the article’s content. An annotation also provides an assessment of the book, article, or resource in question.
When should I write my annotations? The basic sequence for creating an annotated bibliography should be this: 1. Decide your thesis. 2. Find sources to support your thesis, modifying it if necessary. 3. Keep track of those sources, including the information you are taking from them, so that you can cite them correctly in your article. 4. Write your article, including quotes. 5. Using the information gathered during the research process, create a bibliography with annotated entries. So, you basically want to gather the information you need to write each annotation as you write your article. You still need to keep track of what you’re getting from each source, so this isn’t really extra work. The difficult part of how to write an annotated bibliography is not gathering the correct information, rather it is stating that information as concisely as possible.
Subdivision: the anatomy of an annotation Now that you have (hopefully) the idea, here’s an annotated reference example. This example was taken from a paper that claimed that purple is the best color because it is a combination of blue and red. Note that the sample quote is written in the APA style; the formatting, particularly of the citation, differs between style guides, but the basic information contained in the annotation generally remains the same. In the example below, orange text indicates what the article is about, purple explains what makes it a credible source, green outlines the article’s findings, and blue describes how the topic in the document applies to the pap of the article. Author why do you have to understand how to create an annotated bibliography, anyhow?
If you’ve been working on the same card for years, the last thing you want to do is spend more time on that card. It may seem like your professor is simply trying to irritate you, but rest assured, there’s a reason your teacher wants you to know how to write an annotated bibliography.
The reason is that creating a list that shows exactly how you used each source demonstrates two things. First, it shows that you have read and understood the research you mentioned in your work. This basically ensures that you’ve actually learned how to write a research paper correctly, which is a major focus of college classes. Secondly, the creation of an annotated bibliography
