What Is The Meaning Of Annotated Bibliography?

What is an Annotated Bibliography?

I presume that you already are aware of the significance of providing a bibliography list at the end of your theses, essay or research work. This article will focus on the advanced form of bibliography known as ‘annotated bibliography’.

The term may sound unfamiliar and even heavy to most of you but once you get the hang of its concept, I am confident; you would want to prefer annotated bibliography over the regular bibliography.
Definition & Explanation

It can be defined as,

“Annotated bibliography, like any bibliography is composed of an alphabetical list of all sources consulted in the process of carrying out research on a particular topic–in addition to this data, it demands for a brief summary of these sources”.

The summary should be based on not more than a hundred and fifty words and state concisely why you think the source used contains accurate, relevant and useful information.

The reason why annotated bibliography is preferred over regular bibliography is that by giving a short description of the sources used, you are actually giving an impression to the readers that you are an expert on the subject and you have carried out a valid research which supports well your arguments and claims.

You can choose to write annotated bibliography either in brief, short sentences or in the form of paragraphs with of course correct grammar and spellings.
Types of Annotated Bibliographies

Scholars follow different documentation formats such as American Psychological Association (APA), Modern Language Association (MLA) and Council of Biology Editors (CBE), depending upon the area or subject of their research.

A standard formatting style of writing annotated bibliography does not fit the requirement of the mentioned formats therefore; the scholars came up with four annotation writing techniques. It is important to note here that the choice of annotation style for APA, MLA and CBE depends on supervisor’s consent.

A brief explanation four annotation writing styles is provided below:
Indicative Annotation

This type of annotation describes the scope of the source used and overall concept of the research work.
Informative Annotation

If you are using informative annotation, then you need to give a summary of the sources used as well as the arguments of your work.