Annotated Bibliographies

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What is an annotated bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents followed by a brief descriptive paragraph. The purpose of the annotation or description is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited. Your annotation can include comments about the source's:

  • Central theme

  • Scope (information that is included or not included)

  • Author (background, scholarship, or authority)

  • Intended audience

  • Relationship to another cited work on the topic

  • Relevance to and treatment of the topic

See a sample annotated bibliography about United States First Ladies.

 

Get more tips for writing an annotated bibliography:

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Books

Look for books on your topic in the media center's catalog. Remember to think about all the different search terms that can be used to describe your topic. For a paper on Eleanor Roosevelt, for example, search not only on the keywords "Eleanor Roosevelt," but also on the subjects "Roosevelt, Eleanor" and "first ladies."

 

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Electronic resources

Look for articles on your topic in the following Media Center electronic databases and e-books, accessible from the NHHS Media Center home page or on the Media Center computers' favorites list:

History Databases

E-books from Gale Virtual Reference Library

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Additional resources

Be sure to carefully evaluate the sources you choose for your paper. This is especially important when selecting sources from the free Internet. To help you evaluate, try the tips and strategies on the Media Center's Web Evaluation page.

 

Also be sure to cite your sources. Failure to do so is plagiarism, which demonstrates lack of integrity and character. It is inconsistent with the goals and values of NHHS. Review the plagiarism policy to learn about strategies that will help you succeed with honor.

 

NHHS policy on cheating and plagiarism
 http://www.nhvweb.net/NHHS/English/cheatingplagiarismpolicy.htm

 

You can help prevent plagiarism by taking good notes, which include the source of your information. Try using this note-taking grid, which uses Word's table feature, to record your information. After your have completed this grid, save it to your own disk or directory. You can sort it by the Section column to organize your notes by the categories in your paper's outline. You can also sort it by the Source column to create a rough draft of your bibliography.

Note-taking grid
 http://www.nhvweb.net/nhhs/MediaCenter/notegrid.doc

Properly cite your sources by using NoodleBib, an online citation maker from Noodle Tools:

 

NoodleBib6 (stop by the Media Center for password and log-in information)

http://www.noodletools.com/login.php

 

 

Tips for citing databases in NoodleTools
(MLA advanced mode)
 

If you used a database to find …

Select citation type …

On the screen that asks, "What is the publication medium ..." or "In what medium did you view ..."
select …

On the screen that asks, "Free or subscription content?"
select …

An article originally published in a magazine

Magazine

Online

Subscription database

An article originally published in a newspaper

Newspaper or newswire

A viewpoint essay originally published in an Opposing Viewpoints book

Anthology/Book Collection

An article originally published in the database (e.g., an article in Worldbook Online)

Reference source

 

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©2006 • North Hunterdon High School • Updated May 10, 2006