In an annotated bibliography, you follow each of your reference citations with a brief (100 words or less) qualification of the author (including their relevance to the subject); intended audience; how the source compares/contrasts with your other sources; how this source furthers the discussion of the selected topic.

This week’s assignment will be included in your rough draft (due in week 6).

Step 1:

For this exercise, find sources that are relevant to your researched argument paper. You must have five or more annotations in your bibliography. The sources must be scholarly sources. These types of sources (also identified as academic or peer-reviewed sources) are written by recognized experts in a particular field. These sources provide credible information for use in research papers.

Step 2:

Refer to the Writing Guide for information on scholarly sources. EBSCOhost is a source for scholarly sources. Under the “Limit To” heading on the search page, you can narrow your search:

Step 3:

Prepare your annotations as you read your sources. Use these questions as a guide for your notes:

• Who is/are the author(s) and their relevance to the subject
• Who is the intended audience; who is the author writing to (general public, researchers, academics, scientists?)
• How this source relates or contrasts to at least one of our other sources
• How this source helps to further your discussion of the topic

Step 4:

Checklist for Annotated Bibliography:

• Does this bibliography meet the assignment criteria?
• How does the formatting of this assignment look? Does it follow basic APA guidelines for a Reference page? (e.g. Times New Roman font, double-spaced, no extra spacing between paragraphs, first line of the citation flush left with all following lines indented, etc.?)
• Are the annotations brief, clear, and informative? Do they avoid personal opinion? Do they act as a reference guide?
• If you came upon this in your research, how useful would you find this bibliography to be?
• Does this bibliography contain at least five citations?