You need to consider carefully the sources that you select for your annotated bibliography. Keep the following questions in mind to help clarify your choices.
- What topic/problem am I investigating?
- What question(s) am I exploring? Identify the aim of your literature research.
- What kind of material am I looking at and why? Am I looking for journal articles, reports, policies or primary historical data?
- Am I being judicious in my selection of sources? Does each source relate to my research topic and assignment requirements?
- What are the essential or key sources on my topic? Am I finding them? Are the sources valuable or often referred to in other sources?
Which writing style should I use in the annotations?
- Each annotation should be concise. Do not write too much—remember, you are writing a summary, not an essay. Annotations should not extend beyond one paragraph unless otherwise stated in your assignment guidelines. As this is not an extended piece of writing, only mention significant and relevant details.
- Any information apparent in the title of the text or journal can be omitted from the annotation.
- Background materials and references to previous work by the same author usually are not included. As you are addressing one source at a time, there is no need to cross reference or use in-text citations to support your annotation.
- Unless otherwise stated, you should write in full sentences using academic vocabulary.
