A bibliography is usually thought of as an alphabetical listing of books at the end of a written work (book, book chapter, or article), to which the author referred during the research and writing process. In addition to books, bibliographies can include sources such as articles, reports, interviews, or even non-print resources like Web sites, video or audio recordings. Because they may include such varied resources, bibliographies are also referred to as 'references', 'works cited' or 'works consulted' (the latter can include those titles that merely contributed to research, but were not specifically cited in text). The standard bibliography details the citation information of the consulted sources: author(s), date of publication, title, and publisher's name and location (and for articles: journal title, volume, issue and page numbers). The primary function of bibliographic citations is to assist the reader in finding the sources used in the writing of a work.
To these basic citations, the annotated bibliography adds descriptive and evaluative comments (i.e., an annotation), assessing the nature and value of the cited works. The addition of commentary provides the future reader or researcher essential critical information and a foundation for further research.
While an annotation can be as short as one sentence, the average entry in an annotated bibliography consists of a work's citation information followed by a short paragraph of three to six sentences, roughly 150 words in length. Similar to the literature review except for the shorter length of its entries, the annotated bibliography is compiled by:
- Considering scope: what types of sources (books, articles, primary documents, Web sites, non-print materials) will be included? how many (a sampling or a comprehensive list)? (Your instructor may set these guidelines)
- Conducting a search for the sources and retrieving them
- Evaluating retrieved sources by reading them and noting your findings and impressions
- Once a final group of sources has been selected, giving full citation data (according to the bibliographic style [e.g., APA, Chicago, MLA] prescribed by your instructor) and writing an annotation for each source; do not list a source more than once
Annotations begin on the line following the citation data and may be composed with complete sentences or as verb phrases (the cited work being understood as the subject)—again at the discretion of the instructor. The annotation should include most, if not all, of the following:
- Explanation of the main purpose and scope of the cited work
- Brief description of the work's format and content
- Theoretical basis and currency of the author's argument
- Author's intellectual/academic credentials
- Work's intended audience
- Value and significance of the work as a contribution to the subject under consideration
- Possible shortcomings or bias in the work
- Any significant special features of the work (e.g., glossary, appendices, particularly good index)
- Your own brief impression of the work
Although these are many of the same features included in a literature review, the emphasis of bibliographic annotation should be on brevity.
Not to be confused with the abstract—which merely gives a summary of the main points of a work—the annotated bibliography always describes and often evaluates those points. Whether an annotated bibliography concludes an article or book—or is even itself a comprehensive, book-length listing of sources—its purposes are the same:
- To illustrate the scope and quality of one's own research
- To review the literature published on a particular topic
- To provide the reader/researcher with supplementary, illustrative or alternative sources
- To allow the reader to see if a particular source was consulted
- To provide examples of the type of resources available on a given topic
- To place original research in a historical context
