An annotated bibliography is a list of citations (references) to books, articles, and documents followed by a brief summary, analysis or evaluation, usually between 100-300 words, of the sources that are cited in the paper. This summary provides a description of the contents of the source and may also include evaluative comments, such as the relevance, accuracy and quality of the source. These summaries are known as annotations.
Abstracts are the descriptive summaries of article contents found at the beginning of scholarly journal articles that are written by the article author(s) or editor. Their purpose is to inform a reader about the topic, methodology, results and conclusion of the research of the article's author(s). The summaries are provided so that a researcher can determine whether or not the article may have information of interest to them. Abstracts do not serve an evaluative purpose.
Annotations found in bibliographies are evaluations of sources cited in a paper. They describe a work, but also critique the source by examining the author’s point of view, the strengths and weakness of the research or article hypothesis or how well the author presented their research or findings.
How to write an annotated bibliography
The creation of an annotated bibliography is a three-step process. It starts with finding and evaluating sources for your paper. Next is choosing the type or category of annotation, then writing the annotation for each different source. The final step is to choose a citation style for the bibliography.
Types of Annotations
Annotations come in different types, the one to use depends on the instructor’s assignment. Annotations can be descriptive, a summary, or an evaluation or a combination of descriptive and evaluation.
Descriptive/Summarizing Annotations
There are two kinds of descriptive or summarizing annotations, informative or indicative, depending on what is most important for a reader to learn about a source. Descriptive/summarizing annotations provide a brief overview or summary of the source. This can include a description of the contents and a statement of the main argument or position of the article as well as a summary of the main points. It may also describe why the source would be useful for the paper’s topic or question.
Indicative annotations provide a quick overview of the source, the kinds of questions/topics/issues or main points that are addressed by the source, but do not include information from the argument or position itself.
Informative annotations, like indicative annotations, provide a brief summary of the source. In addition, an informative annotation identifies the hypothesis, results, and conclusions presented by the source. When appropriate, they describe the author’s methodology or approach to the topic under discussion. However, they do not provide information about the sources usefulness to the paper or contains analytical or critical information about the source’s quality.
Evaluative Annotations (also known as critical or analytical)
Evaluative annotations go beyond just summarizing the source and listing out it’s key points, but also analyzes the content. It looks at the strengths and weaknesses of the article’s argument, the reliability of the presented information as well as any biases of the author. It talks about how the source may be useful to a particular field of study or the person’s research project.
Combination Annotations
Combination annotations “combine” aspects from indicative/informative and evaluative annotations and are the most common category of annotated bibliography. Combination annotations include one to two sentences summarizing or describing content, in addition to one or more sentences providing an critical evaluation.
Writing Style for Annotations
Annotations typically follow three specific formats depending on how long they are.
To sum it up:
An annotation may include the following information:
In order to write an annotation for a paper source, you need to first read and then critically analyze it:
Hofmann, B., Magelssen, M. In pursuit of goodness in bioethics: analysis of an exemplary article. BMC Med Ethics 19, 60 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-018-0299-9
Jansen, M., & Ellerton, P. (2018). How to read an ethics paper. Journal of Medical Ethics, 44(12), 810-813. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2018-104997
How do I format my annotated bibliography?
An annotated bibliography entry consists of two components: the Citation and the Annotation.
Citation
The citation should be formatted in the bibliographic style that your instructor has requested for the paper. Some common citation styles include APA, MLA, and Chicago. For more information on citation styles, see Writing Guides, Style Manuals and the Publication Process in the Biological & Health Sciences .
Many databases (e.g., PubMed, Academic Search Premier, Library Search on library homepage, and Google Scholar) offer the option of creating your references in various citation styles.
Look for the "cite" link -- see examples for the following resources:
University of Minnesota Library Search
Sample Annotated Bibliography Entries
An example of an Evaluative Annotation, APA style (7th ed). (sample from University Libraries, University of Nevada).
APA does not have specific formatting rules for annotations, just for the citation and bibliography.
Maak, T. (2007). Responsible leadership, stakeholder engagement, and the emergence of social capital. Journal of Business Ethics, 74, 329-343. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-007-9510-5
This article focuses on the role of social capital in responsible leadership. It looks at both the social networks that a leader builds within an organization, and the links that a leader creates with external stakeholders. Maak’s main aim with this article seems to be to persuade people of the importance of continued research into the abilities that a leader requires and how they can be acquired. The focus on the world of multinational business means that for readers outside this world many of the conclusions seem rather obvious (be part of the solution not part of the problem). In spite of this, the article provides useful background information on the topic of responsible leadership and definitions of social capital which are relevant to an analysis of a public servant.
An example of an Evaluative Annotation, MLA Style (10th ed), (sample from Columbia College, Vancouver, Canada)
MLA style requires double-spacing (not shown here) and paragraph indentations.
London, Herbert. “Five Myths of the Television Age.” Television Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 1, Mar. 1982, pp. 81-69.
Herbert London, the Dean of Journalism at New York University and author of several books and articles, explains how television contradicts five commonly believed ideas. He uses specific examples of events seen on television, such as the assassination of John Kennedy, to illustrate his points. His examples have been selected to contradict such truisms as: “seeing is believing”; “a picture is worth a thousand words”; and “satisfaction is its own reward.” London uses logical arguments to support his ideas which are his personal opinion. He does not refer to any previous works on the topic. London’s style and vocabulary would make the article of interest to any reader. The article clearly illustrates London’s points, but does not explore their implications leaving the reader with many unanswered questions.
University Libraries Tutorial -- Tutorial: What are citations? Completing this tutorial you will:
