Writing 101: Bodies in Culture: Reading and Writing the Social Body: Annotated Bibliographies

1) Full bibliographical information of the source:

• For books: Title, author, year, place of publication, and publisher
  • If you are referring to a chapter out of a book, include the name of the chapter, editor (if it is an edited volume), and page numbers in addition to the information for books .
• For articles: Title of the article, the journal, year, date (if available), volume, issue, and page numbers

2) A summary of the source:

• What is the main argument? What is the broader topic? What kind of evidence is used?

3) Relevance to the topic

• How does this book/article relate to your research project? How does it fit with the other sources you will use for your project?

• Annotated Bibliography Samples at OWL Purdue Writing Lab
  • What is the subject matter of each source? What is the main argument?
  • What type of evidence does the source employ?
  • What does the source contribute to your research topic?
  • Is the source helpful and interesting or not? Why? Actions to take
  • Find and record citations to books, articles, and other resources on your research topic. Examine each item and select those that provide the most useful material on your topic.

• From Duke's Writing Studio Handout on Annotated Bibliography:
  An annotated bibliography is an analytic guide to academic resources on a research topic. For each resource (book, article, documentary, etc.), it includes a citation and a brief (2-4 sentence) description and evaluation, or annotation. The annotation is intended to assess the relevance and quality of each resource. Questions to ask:
  • Summarize each source’s content. Include ideas about the subject matter, main argument, and evidence it uses.  
  • Assess the source’s strengths and weaknesses. State why the source is interesting or helpful or why it is not.
  • Combine your summary and analysis into a 3-4 sentence paragraph.