How to Write an Annotated Bibliography

What is the purpose of this guide?

We wrote this short guide to help you with your annotated bibliography writing, to make you understand why it is important for any researcher and to describe all possible bibliography' types and citation styles (APA, MLA, CBE and so on).

We consider you to be a well-experienced writer and you should know that any college writing work or research demands an annotated bibliography as an important part of the work. What an annotated bibliography is used for? It is used for indication of all sources you have used during your research or other work writing. It should include the description and elucidation of any source you cited at.

Many students usually have the same question: "Why should I write an annotated bibliography?" Let us explain why. The most important reason is to show to your auditory that you have provided a substantial research work and a literature studying, and that's why all your suppositions and their arguments have a great base. Rely on your annotated bibliography your readers can study resources you've used and either satisfy with your work or make a decision to provide their own research. In any case your work won't leave unnoticed and unvalued by anybody. That drives us at second reason of annotated bibliography writing. Just imagine the situation: your work is ready, you had a presentation and some of your readers made a decision to study some of your sources. A simple bibliography will just give a list of them and that's all. But you are brilliant researcher, aren't you? And that's why you've made an annotated bibliography. What for? As opposed to a bibliography an annotated bibliography can propose to your reader peculiar and special information about any of your sources. When you write a particular research work it means that you should know almost everything about the topic you chose and that's why you are able to:

Provide a full explanation of the sources background and content
Reason about their serviceability
And of course, give advice for a person who is not as good in this topic as you are.

On the assumption of all mentioned before you should consider your work to be a sort of dialogue between two persons concerned with the same topic. And your annotated bibliography is that thing which gives you the opportunity to provide advice about literature which he or she should read firstly, what to read for "overall development" and what they should avoid in any case.

Ok, we have discussed the reasons of annotated bibliography writing. Now let's speak about the tasks of it. So, the objectives of a good annotated bibliography are:

To support your critical and analytical thinking about the used sources, their position inside the studied area and their influence on your research works and your personal reasoning
To give the evidences that you are able to make a research, to find necessary information, to take the main things from it and to interpret everything correctly
To transform your research work into a sort of guide through the variety of different sources
To induce people to speak about your work and give a careful consideration to it
To give a prompt for other researchers about one or another source - to use it in their own work or not.

Now let's discuss the essential elements of any annotated bibliography irrespective of the citation style you have (APA, MLA etc):

A bibliography itself formatted according to your citation style
A short guide through any source – key points and objectives of it, in other words you need to give the thesis which will prove that you have worked out all books or other materials and caught the main idea of each
Some critical words and reasoning about the author's qualification and authority
Your remarks about the usefulness, efficacy and importance of the particular work for your project
A description about the aim of the work – did the author want to bring home to some concrete idea or he just wanted to catch the attention of the specific auditory?
A couple of links for other sources and works within your working area. They may be opposite to your work or may prove your points.

Remember that items 1-4 are the essential parts of any annotated bibliography and you should include them in any case. The other items are more analytical ones and you can add them to some other point without indication. Sometimes the researcher should include some other points depending on the annotation type he has. Discuss it with your supervisor beforehand.

If you have to write a spacious research paper (more than 10 pages) you will see the material divided into separate groups based on their content or some other criteria. But we suppose you won't write anything like this. But in case you will you should consult with you supervisor for a preferable list of sources.

The other important annotated bibliography feature is citation style. This is the thing which will influence on all annotated bibliography writing. Before you start your writing you have to choose among all available styles and pick out the most suitable one depending on the work style and studying area. But irrespective of a citation style you have remember two main points of bibliography formatting:

It has double space
It has proper margins.

All these position you can and should discuss with your supervisor because as usual this person has its own point of view of things. The annotation type is also depends on the citation style too.

The first style is the MLA (Modern Language Association)
This citation style is often used for such kinds of documents as: languages, film critique, theoretical researches or other investigations within the cultural area. The annotations which are used here are of the summary or analytical types
The second is the APA (American Psychological Association)
APA style is used in psychology, sociology, social works and other social sciences documents. The other areas of usage are business, criminology and economic sciences. The annotation style is succinct summary
And the third ones are the CBE (Council of Biology Editors)/ CSE (Council of Science Editors)
If you are going to write such types of documentation within such sciences as zoology, microbiology and other medical ones you choice is CBE/CSE style. Remember that you don't need to indicate an annotated bibliography. You can use formal "References" indication instead of it.

Now look through different annotation types. Their selection depends on your purposes and intention to present to your reader particular information in a proper form. We want to draw your attention on that fact that an annotation' type doesn't depend on the citation style you use. That's why it is fully your choice. Make a decision by yourself or ask your supervisor about his preferences. If it is you who make the final decision just use your research assignment and try to get as much as possible information from there.

Types of annotation

1. Summary annotation

Provide summarizing of a work content
Provide a short review of all your evidences that supports the final conclusion
Don't make any judgments about your work
May describe the methods and ways the author used under his book writing.

2. Informative annotation

May look like plain summarizing but also they give some additional information about the author and his work.

3. Indicative annotation

This type of annotation doesn't give any information about the argument but it presents the questions and results your work had set.

4. Critical annotation

This annotation style doesn't make only summarizing but also execute the following tasks:

Make the critical estimation of the author or his book
Present proofs about the usefulness or disutility for concrete area or concrete audience
Make an explanation about the contribution this material made for your writing process.

Now let's speak about some kinds of writing styles:

Telescopic – the motto of this style is "conciseness". It provides a description of information in short way without any details. Remember: the telescopic style is harder than on the face of it.
Paragraph – demands some additional elements in your annotation bibliography and sometimes more detailed estimation or description of the subject.

Having read this guide you surely will get a piece of useful information about the annotated bibliography writing. You see that this process isn't an easy drive and demands hard work and careful thinking and preparation. Read all advices, produce your own tactics, pay attention on citation style you need to use and everything will be all right.