Guidelines for Writing an Annotated Bibliography
An annotated bibliography is a list of potential sources that includes brief summaries of the content of each article. Your annotated bibliography will include five (5) sources and will give you an opportunity to read and evaluate sources for your argument essay so that you can determine if and how they will be used in your paper. It will also give you practice using the MLA format for citations.
At least two of the sources for this paper MUST be database articles. You are welcome to use the databases to search for all of your sources. If you do use other print or internet sources, they must be cited correctly in MLA format. Please do not use Wikipedia as a source.
Length: To include all of the sections described below, you will need at least 750 words. There is no penalty for extra length, but you should be able to keep it below 1000 words.
Guidelines for your Annotated Bibliography
Your annotated bibliography should contain at least five sources that you intend to cite in your argument essay. Please include the following:
- A statement of scope: 3-5 sentences to explain your topic and what you are hoping to argue in your paper.
- Complete, correct works cited entry for each source.
- A concise (2-3 sentences) description of each source, including what type of publication it’s from, the credibility of the author(s), and a very brief summary of its contents.
- A brief (1-3 sentences) evaluation of each source that explains why you feel this source will be useful in your paper, and where you might include the information in your paper.
Please look over the sample annotated bibliographies to see how your paper should be laid out. A sample entry is below. You will have an entry like this for each of your sources, for a total of five entries. Your entries will be double spaced and indented in MLA format. (Note: Use a hanging indent — the second and subsequent lines of each entry should be indented .5″.
Strong, Colby. “Early Treatment of New-Onset Child and Adolescent Migraine May Prevent Disease Progression.”
Neurology Reviews 17.12 (2009): 20. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 18 Oct. 2010.
This medical journal article features the results of a study conducted by researchers at New Jersey Medical School that examines whether or not early treatment of migraine prevents worsening disease. The authors conclude that preventive therapy is very important in recurrent migraines in order to stop them from becoming more severe and frequent. This information will be useful in the section of the paper that evaluates the importance and efficacy of the various medical interventions in the treatment of adolescent migraine. It also contains statistics about the frequency of migraine that might be useful in the introduction of the paper.
Evaluation criteria for annotated bibliography
- Following all instructions above.
- Correctness of MLA citations.
- Using at least 2 articles from one or more research (Sinclair Library) databases.
- College-level correctness of spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
- Using MLA manuscript form.
This paper is worth 75 points.
Submit your paper to me in the Annotated Bibliography DropBox. The files should be either a Microsoft Word file or a rich text file (.rtf).
If you need a similar but plagiarism-free “annotated bibliography”, then feel free to contact us!