Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

How to Write an Annotated Bibliography

An annotated bibliography includes a 1-paragraph summary and evaluation of each of the sources. Please do the following: Annotated Bibliography

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• Cite: Start with an APA citation for each source.

 

• Summarize: What are the main arguments? What is the point of this book or article? What topics are covered? If someone asked what this article/book is about, what would you say?

 

 

• Assess: Is it a useful source? How does it compare with other sources in your bibliography? Is the information reliable? Is it this source biased or objective? What is the goal of this source?

 

• Reflect: Was this source helpful to you? How does it help you shape your argument? How can you use this source in your research project? Has it changed how you think about your topic? Annotated Bibliography

 

 

 

Why should I write an annotated bibliography?

• To learn about your topic: Writing an annotated bibliography is excellent preparation for a research project. Just collecting sources for a bibliography is useful, but when you have to write annotations for each source, you’re forced to read each source more carefully. You begin to read more critically instead of just collecting information.
• To help you formulate a thesis: Every good research paper is an argument. The purpose of research is to state and support a thesis. So a very important part of research is developing a thesis that is debatable, interesting, and current. By reading and responding to a variety of sources on a topic, you’ll start to see what the issues are, what people are arguing about, and you’ll then be able to develop your own point of view.

 

 

 

Here is a color-coded SAMPLE which does each of the four things listed above:

Schmidt, J., & Hashimoto, J. (1994). Polls and public

opinion.  Retrieved from http://www.newyorktimes.com

 

Schmidt and Hashimoto tested the hypothesis that poll results on political issues shape public opinion. Schmidt and Hashimoto conducted surveys and interviews of one hundred college students, half male, half female, and the study revealed that subjects were most likely to be influenced by opinion polls if they did not know much about the issues and/or they had no strong pre-existing personal views on the issues.

This study is relevant to one of my leading research questions: Just how much power does the U.S. media have to influence public opinion on political issues? Given the small sampling limited to college students, this study is hardly conclusive, nor representative of the American public at large. Yet Schmidt and Hashimoto’s study suggests that some of the population may be immune to media influence, particularly if they have studied the issues and formed their own conclusions.

I can use this in my essay to support the idea that media influences are limited and not necessarily the cause of individual behavior or social patterns of behavior.