Annotated Bibliographies: What is an Annotated Bibliography?

An bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and other sources used while researching a topic. Bibliographies may be also be called "References" or "Works Cited," depending on the style manual used.

An annotation is a summary or evaluation.

An annotated bibliography is a bibliography with annotations for the items cited.

Descriptive annotations focus on describing the cited items and may include information such as:

• Contents and purpose of work
• Intended audience
• Research methods used
• Author's conclusions
• Special features of the item, such as illustrations, maps, graphs, etc.

Evaluative (or critical) annotations focus on evaluating the source and may include information such as:

• Importance of the work's contributions to the field of study
• Author's qualifications
• Accuracy of information
• Limitations of the work
• Bias or tone of the work
• Comparsion with other works