Ms. Harris’ Guide to Creating an Annotated Bibliography
What exactly is an “annotated bibliography?”
A bibliography (or “Works Cited” page if you are following MLA format) is a list of sources used by an author. It provides the basic information future historians reading your argument need in order to double check your sources or find further information on your topic.
To “annotate” something means to explain or give notes on that topic. Thus, an annotated bibliography is a document that lists an author’s primary and secondary sources AND provides an explanation why the author used that source. Although there are several ways to complete an annotated bibliography, we will supply the citation for a source and write a one paragraph explanation about that source.
The paragraph for each source must summarize the information learned from it and analyze its usefulness. It should answer most of the following questions:
- What is the thesis (or main argument) of this source?
- What topics does the source discuss?
- What does the author say about your topic?
- Why is this source specifically useful to you?
- How will you use this source in your work?
- What are the qualifications of the author? Why are they an “expert?”
- Is this source biased in any way? Explain.
Altogether, your annotation for each source should be about 200 words long. You aren’t writing a rough draft of your paper, only making notes about each source
Why do I need to create an annotated bibliography?
Well, the most obvious answer is because it has been assigned to you and it will damage your grade if you don’t.
The more academic reasoning as to why one should create an annotated bibliography is simple– it forces the researcher to find USEFUL sources, preventing him or her from desperately writing down any book—relevant or not– in order to meet a deadline. You save hours of work by critically evaluating sources for their content at the beginning of a research project, rather than wasting time later on doing further research. Moreover, it helps inform and focus your thesis early on. You can spend more time perfecting your argument than figuring out what the argument is.
What would a sample entry for an annotated bibliography look like?
Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Deirdre English. For Her Own Good : 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women. New
York: Broadway Books, 1989.
The main argument of this book is that throughout U.S. history, many different “experts” have given women advice about how to fill their proper roles as daughters, mothers, or wives. However, most of this “advice” really only forced women to try to live up to unrealistic standards at the cost of their own personal development and achievement. The authors look at the history of medicine, religion, and pop culture in the U.S. and how each told women how to lead their lives. Ehrenreich and English are historians and journalists. Primary sources used by the authors include interviews, advertisements, religious pamphlets, medical journals, personal diaries and newspaper articles. They have both published books or articles on women’s history in the U.S. Ehrenreich is a university professor. This book will be useful for my topic because it discusses what the idea of a “good mother” was in the 1800s. I will use it in my report during the part about how many believed women’s place was at home with the children during this time period. It is helpful because it is the only source I found that discusses how women themselves felt about this role, instead of just what that role is. I do not think the researchers have any major bias.
