The annotated bibliography

What is an annotated bibliography?

An annotated bibliography consists of an organised list of references to books, articles, web-based sources, or other documents. Each reference is followed by an annotation, which is a short description and evaluation, written in paragraph form.

What comes in an annotated bibliography?

Full bibliographic reference (respecting rules about referencing, e.g. with

details about author, title, publisher, place of publication…).

Summary of document, including the main points, its purpose, the theoretical perspective it is based on, scope.

Evaluation of the source. This is where you briefly critique the source.

Look at:

• Reliability (evaluation of research methods used and of theories and data it is based on)
• Which audience is it intended for? Is it accessible to that audience?
• Evaluation of the authority or background of the author
• Limitations (they can depend on the scope, reliability, age of the document, bias)
• Usefulness of the source (for your purposes)

Purpose of the annotated bibliography

• To learn about a topic.
• To provide an overview of what has been said about a topic.
• To help you critically evaluate your sources

Example

Bruffee, K.A. (1985), A short course in writing: practical rhetoric for teaching composition through collaborative learning (3rd ed), Boston: Little, Brown & Company.

Kenneth Bruffee’s Short Course in Writing has become a classic in the genre of collaborative learning and teaching. It contains exercises and accompanying notes for writers and teachers to be used in the context of the collaborative classroom. The book is divided into five parts, plus a set of model essays. The first two parts contain essay exercises that introduce students to the basic issues in essay writing: discovering a topic, generalising it, and either defending or explaining it. Parts four and five introduce students to the more complex issues in essay writing: demonstrating the importance or relevance of an argument and researching a topic. Between these two sections, part three contains most of the explicitly instructional material in the book.

This is the most helpful section of the book for teachers who wish to have a better understanding of the principles underlying collaborative group work and peer review, as well as good examples of what can be done. Bruffee’s clearly written and accessible text, with its extensive collection of exercises and model essays in a variety of genres, is an essential reference tool for anyone engaged in collaborative teaching and learning.