what is a annotated biblography

what is a annotated biblography

Annotated Bibliography: A Comprehensive Guide

1. Introduction

This must be compared and contrasted with an abstract, which is a condensed attempt at a summary of a work as a whole. It is a part of a guide to the work and may provide much information. An abstract is often much shorter. It is necessary to make sure that an annotation not be confused with an abstract. An annotation is an invitation that implies the interest of the reader in a work; it seeks to persuade all of the readers to agree and understand. Unless in the case of disagreement, it may be assumed that the quality of the work is not open to question. Often, the quality, whether good or poor, is not annotated. A reader questioning a need for a paper on postclassical South may or may not be persuaded to read a history depending upon his or her view on the term postclassical and its period. The annotation may or may not be persuasive. It is a tool to explain your product and the annotations on any given topic are worth today. A reference in a work by a classics scholar to the use of a term may or may not be annotated. It is a matter of judgment. The annotations on the use of a term are to be the subject matter of the annotation. The annotation is more than an immediate reference. It is important for the user of the product to be able to find his or her way through the mass of published data.

An annotation is basically metadata that is used to add information about the object or element to which it is attached. In a document, etc., it is most often a descriptive statement providing added quality from the author or a reviewer. The word has been the subject of much debate and there is today a need for a specific bibliographical definition. The American Society of Information Science defines an annotation as all the information intended to describe and explain the content, quality, and relevance of the work itself or a part of or works in it (M.3rd ed 1983). This is obviously a broad definition, but the term today is frequently used in much the same way. It is an attempt to provide some context or interpretation to an event or work about which little may be known, very often without consultation of additional sources. It is an enhancement of a product for purposes of retrieval or it may be a summary of a product so that the product can later be more easily understood or evaluated. The type of annotation varies greatly depending upon the type of information and the needs of the user.

Bibliography has sometimes been classified as a purely mechanical work dealing with the recording and locating of the written word in such a way as to recover the maximum number of titles for a given subject with a minimum of reader’s time. It has also been used to locate an existing and long-forgotten piece, often in the form of a manuscript copy of an original manuscript. Finally, it has been used to evaluate and criticize a body of work on a given subject and to select for the reader or for a class which are the most important works on a given subject. Given these classifications, more or less emphasis may be involved in bibliography depending upon the needs of the searcher. Too often, career has equated the making of a bibliography with the making of a list of titles. This is a much too simple view. The essence of a bibliography, without some analysis and more definite criteria of materials to be listed, is lost. The chances are greater that the end product will be an unannotated list. It is usually given and the writer must be on his guard to make the list of titles flow from the record of a mass of data taken directly from the sources.

An introduction on annotated bibliographies. Typically, the word bibliography has many and various meanings. For example, it may be a great book list, or it may be the list of material appended to an article. We use it in this book to denote a list of documentation, usually books. It is a relatively new development in the field of documentation and has led to rethinking some aspects of the nature of the bibliography, touching the material cited and the nature of the annotated bibliography. An annotated bibliography is often a useful preliminary to a research project. A career bibliography actually begins with a specific problem the researcher wishes to explore. It is often necessitated by the need to determine quickly and definitively what has been written on a given subject, in order that intelligent steps may be taken onward. At one time, the process was often unpleasant because the first tool of the searcher was a laborious reading through of material, with the making of exhaustive notes from the title pages and through the contents of hundreds of volumes.

2. Purpose of an Annotated Bibliography

The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited. It would appear that writing an annotation is deceptively simple, and many students find that the value and skills required of this simple paragraph are underrated. In order to write an effective annotation, one must be keenly focused on the significance of the chosen sources. As with any undertaking, seek first to understand what the task at hand is. In this case, the analytical, critical mindset required of the writer of the annotation is akin to that required by those writing a successful research paper. Assess the scope of the sources required and then analyze them, explaining in your own words how this source has helped you in constructing your paper. This self-reflection and analysis can be quite challenging to new college students, and the annotation is often a first step toward this task; evaluating what the source says, employing critical thinking skills to identify and reconstruct its major points, and finally summing up your intellectual effort to understand said source. The effort to do this will be shown in the depth and quality of the annotation and will be reflected in how much you sample the source by directly quoting. In the end, the annotation should conclude how this source provides a prospective thesis writer with a solid basis for constructing the thesis and what place it has among the other sources. If this work becomes difficult, the writer always has a fallback question to ask himself: Is this source worth my time and let alone money? With so much to gain and so much to lose, evaluating the value of a source is a high-intensity task that is minimally resolved in most research-based assignments with mere parameters of the project.

3. How to Create an Annotated Bibliography

When it comes to creating your annotated bibliographies, most of you will start off by preparing a regular works cited listing. Then, you would simply add a single paragraph providing an annotation for each source. There are several problems with this approach. First, it may not adequately represent the effort you have put into researching and selecting sources. Also, what a lot of you will consider to be a “paragraph” summary can be very brief, leaving a lot of information about the source. In order to create a quality annotated bibliography, it is necessary to go beyond the mechanics of citation to added insight and quality. This involves doing much more than just summarizing (Wikipedia, 2006). Your annotation should now go on to evaluate the worth of the source for an academic project. You can critique the source (i.e. Was the information presented factually or logically? Was the source well-researched or was it citing only shallow, readily available information? Was the information biased? Did the author avoid loaded language?) and discuss how the source is useful for your paper. The length requirement for the annotation can vary so be sure to ask your instructor about the length of the annotation. Typically your annotated bibliography will be 3-5 sentences for each citation. With the evaluative insight added, you will often find that the annotation will reach this length quickly. Make sure that you are being clear and concise about the ideas that you are adding. A lengthy paragraph about a short, simple source will only end up confusing and tiring the reader.

4. Benefits of Using an Annotated Bibliography

A bibliography is a list of sources, usually placed at the end of a document, that you consulted or cited in creating the document. In an annotated bibliography, each source is followed by a summary of it and its relevance to your paper topic. Creating an annotated bibliography ensures that you have found adequate scholarly resources, and that you have read your sources carefully and have a good understanding of them. An annotated bibliography helps you become a better researcher. In order to write an annotated bibliography, you need to be able to summarize the source. This means you’ll need to take the time to read it carefully. You can’t just find a source and add it to the list without reading it. You also need to evaluate the source and decide whether or not it’s a good resource to use.

5. Conclusion

An annotation of a book is a structured list of sources, each accompanied by a brief note which describes the source. These can be a separate paper or part of a larger document. This paper is an annotated bibliography for these three works on the topic of cell phone use by students. This research is of great importance to me and has been chosen because of its great influence on students and their educational surroundings. This literature review will help to digest and analyze the information so it can then be summarized and used in an action research project which will be conducted. This action research project is centered around whether using cell phones in class negatively affects students in a school environment to inhibit their learning abilities. Overall, the annotated bibliography provided here has some potentially useful information; however, no definite conclusions can be drawn from the three sources until they are further examined and carefully scrutinized for validity, reliability, and generalizability. This process will certainly be an interesting one, and I look forward to reading and researching more about the use of cell phones in today’s ever-growing technologically advanced society.