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Jun 1st 2018

How to Write an Annotated Bibliography

Content: Be it a course assignment, improving your researching skills, or saving time when working on a long research paper, annotated bibliography can be used for a number of reasons. If this is the first time that you are searching for how to write an annotated bibliography and don't know what it is or how it is written, read this post in its entirety and you'll have answers to all your questions.

So to start with- What is annotated bibliography? An annotated bibliography is nothing but a bibliography that has annotations. You might already know how you can write Reference Page or Work Cited, right? Just add annotations to them and you have an annotated bibliography.

What are annotations though? Annotations have a small summary of your work, the credibility of the sources you've used or critique of the author, along with a discussion about whether the sources are used in the research.

Now that you've got the basics, let us move to the most important question- How to write an annotated bibliography? To answer the question, we've created this simple 7-step guide which will help you understand how to write a bibliography with annotation.

1. Summarizing all the sources

The first step of how to write an annotated bibliography step by step is to summarize the sources. Ensure that you carefully select all the sources and create their summaries. This can be easily done by taking important notes and then pointing out useful aspects in them. You should do this in such a way that anyone can understand what the research is about with a single glance.

2. Citations

The 2nd step of how to write an annotated bibliography is the citations which can be referenced from academic abstracts, scholarly books, articles, videos, images, or websites. This will be a list of all the references which you will use for supporting your argument. Ensure that you know the periodicals and journals citing style recommended by your professor.

MLA (Modern Language Association) and APA (American Psychological Association) are two of the most popularly used citation styles by people looking for tips on writing a bibliography. Generally, the formal first has the author's name, book title or article title you are using and the publication date of the book's latest version. The citations can be organized in a few ways, like chronologically, alphabetically, by sub-topics, language, or format.

3. Using annotated bibliography

If you are tired of searching for writing a bibliography with annotations in the right way, this is the step you should focus upon. You can use a single-paragraph information for your arguments to enhance your paper while also making sure that things are easy to read and understand. This also makes it easier for the readers to know which sources they will need for additional reference.

Thus, if you are looking for how to write a bibliography, it is very important to know that annotated bibliography is not an abstract of the research but a detailed summary which is highly informative and is focused on particular parts of the selected topic. It is generally recommended that one should annotate every bibliography source.

4. Assess credentials and background of the authors in your annotation

If you want to understand how to write annotated bibliography successfully, you should also add experience and other credentials of their author, like their critical reviews, educational qualifications, etc. This will help the writers as well as the readers. There is also an option to talk about their intellectual inclination which school of thought they belong to.

The simple mention of these details can make your argument enriched and intellectually fertile. If you are able to do part of writing a bibliography successfully, rest assured that your thesis would be accepted with a lot of applause and respect.

5. Create a list of main arguments and central themes

By providing a list of your main arguments and central themes, you make it easier for the readers to understand what your research is about. A lot of people also outline topics covered in research questions. You need to make sure that the readers can clearly understand why you've used a particular journal, article, or book for supporting your argument.

In this step of how to write bibliography with annotations, you should outline all the important aspects of your sources and ensure that they can be easily read by anyone. Focus on keeping everything approachable for everyone.

6. Evaluate every source

The next part of this how to write annotated bibliography step by step is to critically evaluate all the sources you have used under a subheading ‘bibliographically included'. Also, make sure whether or not the sources have any glossary, bibliography or index. If you've used any survey instruments or survey devices, mention them here.

With this, you should help the readers understand how useful a source has been in your research. Let them know whether any of the details are objective or biased or reliable. Chronology of books should also be mentioned. You need to make sure that the sources are outdated or current.

7. Making bibliography with all the sources

The last step of writing a bibliography with annotations is noting all your sources and using them to create a bibliography. Make use of all these sources with annotations in all your points and mention them after every point. This is an excellent way of enriching the article and making it highly acceptable.

It is not difficult to see how writing a bibliography with annotations can make you a better researcher and why so many people search for how to write an annotated bibliography. It requires you to spend some time to go through all your sources and then summarize arguments in them. While reading the sources and making annotations from them can be a time-consuming process, it is also important to note that once done, it can also help save a lot of time.

When the annotated bibliography is completed, it can save you a lot of headaches and will eliminate the need to go through all the sources multiple times as they are sure to linger in your mind for a long time. Now that you've found an answer for how to write an annotated bibliography step by step, start using this new-found knowledge as soon as possible.





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