An Annotated Bibliography is a list of citations to books, journal articles, and other works accompanied by descriptive and critical paragraph length summaries.
Recommended Components of an Annotation: (*Note: not all will apply)
- brief summary
- authority (who is responsible for the content? is he/she an expert? what are his/her credentials?)
- relevance (how does the material relate to the topic?)
- scope (what’s included? what’s excluded? general or specific content?)
- audience (general? academic? particular group or organization? scholarly or popular?)
- purpose (educate? inform? persuade? entertain? sell? what is the author trying to convey?)
- objectivity (are there apparent biases? facts or opinions? balanced viewpoint?)
- credibility (what sources does the author use? is the material well-researched? are there references or documented sources of information?)
- timeliness (is the research current?)
- relationship and/or comparison to other works on the topic (how does it all fit together?)
For additional help and examples, see the UWF Libraries guide for writing an Annotated Bibliography
