An annotated bibliography helps you gather sources relevant to your research.
Tips!
- Be organized. As you search the databases and the Web, save pdfs and citations. Try using NoodleTools to collect citations so that you can export them into a bibliography later.
- As you collect sources, think about how the sources can support your claims and provide evidence for your arguments. Organize your thoughts in an outline, pulling out important quotations, paraphrases and ideas from the sources. NoodleTools allows you to make an outline and to create notecards to record quotations and paraphrasing from sources and place them in the outline.
- Note: when you see folks get caught for plagiarism in the news, they often blame it on poor organization or a bad memory (I had forgotten where I heard that!). Keep organized to avoid unintentional plagiarism.
- Each annotation should include the following:
- Summary of the source's main argument. Try and identify the evidence the author uses to back up her claims. Identify the conclusions the author has come to in their paper.
- Hint: If an abstract exists, most of this information can be found there. See also the Conclusion (last paragraphs).
- Relevance - Why is this source relevant for your paper? How will it back up the claims you are making in your thesis?
- Need more help? Purdue OWL is a great resource for writing an annotated bibliography - and it has some samples.
