Annotated Bibliography

As part of your research project, you are required to submit an annotated bibliography, a time-honored way of keeping up with sources materials you use in writing a research paper. The following is a guide to the production of the annotated bibliography.

When writing any research paper, you should collect more than the minimum number of sources of each type required, if for no other reason than that you will probably not be able to use all of the sources you collect. Make sure that your sources are valid (authoritative) and express several different perspectives or ways of thinking about your topic.

Complete the following:

Survey, skim, and read selected parts of each source.

Provide bibliographic information for each source, according to MLA format specifications.

Write a summary, a response, and an indication of how you might use each source in your paper.

Content Requirements:

Begin each entry with bibliographic information.

1: In your own words, clearly summarize the source information in a short paragraph (c. 100 words). Doing a careful job of wording will make writing your paper easier. Be sure to put any of the authors words in quotation marks.

2. Write an insightful response in 2-3 sentences (approximately 50 words).

3. Give an indication in 1-2 sentences of how you may use each source in your paper. If the information is not immediately useful, say so, but indicate to whom it might be useful.

Format requirements:

Follow MLA formatting standards. Be sure to include appropriate heading, header, assignment name, etc.

Your annotated bibliography is a “running” document; in other words, you are not to put entries on separate pages. Alphabetize the annotations by author’s last name. Do not number the entries but skip space between each entry. You will also want to indent the first sentence in each section of each entry. The idea is to make the reading of the information easy and uncomplicated.

Proofread your annotated bibliography very carefully. Make absolutely certain that you consult and use a current MLA style guide, especially in giving bibliographic information. Doing this correctly will make the creation of the works cited page of your finished paper an easier task.