Storage guide: Annotated bibliographies

What is an annotated bibliography?

A bibliography is a list of sources including books, journals, websites, periodicals, etc. that one has used for researching a topic.

An annotation is a summary and/or evaluation.

An annotated bibliography includes a summary and/or evaluation of each of the sources.

How do I write an annotation? What? Evaluate?

An annotation describes and evaluates the source. First, you describe. What was the article/book/etc. about? Then you evaluate. If you are stuck on evaluating your source, go back to the CRAAP criteria. Ask yourself:

• How is the article related to your topic? How is it related to other works in the field?  
• What is the purpose of the article? Who is the audience and what is the reading level of difficulty?
• How authoritative is the author? Does the author show any bias?
• If someone else were researching this topic, would the article be useful? 

Sample entry for a journal article

More examples:

Scientific Misconduct: An Annotated Bibliography Example of a simple, alphabetically arranged, selective annotated bibliography.

Annotated Bibliography of Resources on Leadership Note the citations are NOT APA format but the annotations are good examples.

For more information

Purdue OWL is a valuable source where you can find out more about annotated bibliographies, and see examples. You can find links to examples in the menu on the left side of the screen.

Take a look at a really good video about annotated bibliographies from UMUC Libraries.