Claim Essays-ENGLISH 1B: Annotated Bibliography

A Bibliography is a list of citations for your sources (books, journals, websites, periodicals, etc.It's like a Works Cited page at the end of a paper -- listing your source's author, title, publisher, etc.). 

An Annotation is a paragraph that goes underneath each citation. It usually includes a short summary of the source, an evaluation of the source's credibility, and an assessment of how you're going to use the source (or not) in your research paper. (See below for more information).

1. To evaluate sources:

   The Internet and the library both contain information on virtually any topic, but it’s important to make sure that you use credible, current sources. Inaccurate, questionable, or out-of-date sources can undermine your ideas and cause your reader to question your knowledge on your topic. Relevant and informed sources can help you to support and prove your thesis and persuade your audience, so evaluating and selecting sources carefully is an important part of writing a strong, convincing paper.

2. 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 reading each source more carefully. You begin to read more critically instead of just collecting information.

3. 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. Writing an annotated bibliography can help you gain a good perspective on what is being said about your topic. 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.