What is an annotated bibliography?
Learners sometimes deal with some assignments that consist of a bibliography. Such assignments are completed in the form of in-depth research, hence, you need to support your paper with citations as it shows that your research is well-founded, reasonable, and coherent. That helps the readers to find out the topic, double-check the information, investigate it by themselves, etc. Hence, a bibliography is an important chapter of your assignment and it has to be clear, proper, and formatted in compliance with general requirements. So, what is an annotated bibliography?
So, first of all, we need to explain that an annotated bibliography is a certain type of bibliography that consists of three core elements: cover page/title, citations, and annotations. In general, it is a list of references/citations that is followed by annotations to each source. It looks in the following way: title, citation, annotation, citation, annotation, and so on. An annotated bibliography is intended to give the readers more detailed information about the works cited. You need to write a citation and provide the reader with a short brief about it. An annotation is different from an abstract, and it has to be short, informative, reasonable, and clear. Hence, it consists of such elements as a brief outline of the information; its strong and weak sides; its inference; its impact on your research; its methodology; your own opinion about the reference; etc.
It should be written in the form of a description, summary, evaluation, or reflection. These types aim to give information about a certain source and write an overview of it. The types are in the form of consideration of the work.
A description is a general overview of the cited source that reveals its main idea, and topic, describes the importance of the work, and so on. It is better to use descriptions for general sources that don’t have a significant impact on your research and consist of some basic information.
A summary is brief information about the cited work that gives the reader all the significant data, such as the main theme and points of the work, its short conclusion, and so on. A summary should be informative and summarize all the essential data of the work in two or three sentences.
An evaluation is a kind of personal assessment of the work cited and its connection with your research. You need to assess the importance of the reference for your research, its impact on your work, the content of the work cited, and so on. Eventually, you get an evaluation of the source.
A reflection is a kind of display of the main points and conclusions of a certain source. It is similar to the description, however, it aims not to describe the content, but to reflect the main topic of the work instead.
In case you want to find interesting annotated bibliography topics, feel free to visit our page related to this.
Annotated bibliography tips to ease the process
So, as you see, you need to follow some requirements and complete the paper in compliance with the peculiarities of writing annotated bibliography. It is not difficult but in case you don’t know the general tips, you may waste too much time preparing a proper paper.
Let’s take a look at Ennio Mingolla. If you have never heard of him, he is:
- Professor and Chair of the Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology at Northeastern University
- Professor of Psychology and Member of Governing Board at the Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science, and Technology (CELEST)
- Adjunct Professor at CNS Vision Lab at Boston University
- Adjunct Professor at Neuromorphics Laboratory at Boston University
- Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Boston University
He works on the development and empirical testing of neural network models of visual perception, notably the segmentation, grouping, and contour formation processes of early and middle vision in primates, and on the transition of these models to technological applications.
Based on his studies, we have prepared tips to make your annotated bibliography writing an easy process.
Well, there are some annotated bibliography tips to facilitate the process and resolve your issues with annotated bibliography. First and foremost, you need to take into account the fact the whole annotated bibliography consists of 3 parts: title, citations, and annotations. There is a running header as well but it is not a particular element of the annotated bibliography.
The title is «Annotated bibliography» or «Annotated list of references». It is centered almost in all formats. An annotated bibliography is used when you provide all the sources you used to do your research even works that are not cited in the text. In turn, an annotated list of references is used when you give the list of works cited in your assignment. It may be different and you have to follow the requirements of your instructor.
Then, we need to clarify some details of citations. Firstly, sources for your research have to be credible and valid. It is not acceptable to cite any questionable or dubious resources to avoid unnecessary consequences. Each work has to be reasonable, well-known, verified, and somehow connected to the topic. Speaking of sources, we also should mention, that you may cite not only books. There are such types of references as books, journals, articles, websites, and so on. They are divided into primary and secondary sources. The main point is to follow the requirements of citing that or another type of source. Making a citation in the annotated list you need to provide the readers with the next information: an author, title, publisher, and publishing year. As for websites, you have to share the URL. Such instructions can be different depending on the type of reference and format.
As for her tips, we can say, that annotated bibliography is mostly streamlined in a certain way. Lots of formats follow an alphabetical order by title, author, publishing year, or subject. However, it helps you to have all references in a certain order to eat the navigation.
Speaking of some formatting requirements, there are such peculiarities as margins, indent, running head, and so on. Margins are 1-inch throughout the paper for almost all formats. The running head and indent are different, so, you need to follow the peculiarities of your format. As for APA, an annotation is five spaces indented, and the running head is 1/2-inch down. The MLA running head consists of the last name of the writer and a page number. So, you can see, there are some differences.
We can also advise you on how to write a proper annotation. Firstly, it has to be short and informative. You don’t need to write lots of unnecessary and general information. It should display the credibility of the source, its connection to the topic, your personal opinion about the source, the way it influences the research, and so on. Consequently, you get a paragraph of the concise outline of the work cited.
Then, it is important to mention that an annotated bibliography is double-spaced in almost all formats.
Consequently, taking everything into consideration, we need to clarify once more that to write a proper annotated bibliography, you need to have an excellent understanding of the topic and in-depth knowledge of its sources to make a comparison, show the readers connections and links, make your research well-founded, and so on. Writing your annotated bibliography, you need to bear in mind its general peculiarities and pay attention to cited work, its credibility, trustworthiness, etc. Moreover, to complete an annotated bibliography properly, you need to comply with the formatting requirements of your format. So, you need to format your paper to get a flawless result.
