Annotated Bibliographies: Home

Annotated bibliographies are great research tools. Creating one as an assignment is a good learning experience. It involves skills of selection, evaluation, description, and critical thinking, and will take you through these steps:

An annotated bibliography is a helpful research tool that lists useful resources for a specific research topic or area. It includes:

• a short commentary or summary for each book, article, Web site, etc. that it lists. The commentary is descriptive (tells about the content), and
• an evaluation that informs the reader about the author's point of view, whether the item is "mainstream" or takes a new or radical tack, and
• an indication of the sources' usefulness in answering the research question.

Annotated bibliographies answer the question: "What would be the most relevant, most useful and most up-to-date sources for this topic?" As an assignment, they get you to engage in the work of scholarship, using your knowledge, research, and critical thinking skills.

stepsCN_1825.jpg by clarita

This guide has been adapted with permission from the excellent Annotated Bibliography guide by Tony Amodeo of the William H Hannon Library, Loyola Marymount University.