The Annotated Bibliography

The Annotated Bibliography

At the start of your research you will compile a formatted list of the sources you believe you will use to learn about your topic. This list of sources is called a bibliography. Bibliographies are a list of sources, with information about where the sources come from.

An annotated bibliographycontains additional detail about what the source contains. Compiling an annotated bibliography will help you learn about your topic and narrow your argumentative focus.

* The bibliographic information of a source usually consists of the author, title, and publication information for that source. This information helps other researchers (and your teacher) see where your ideas began.

* The annotation component of an annotated bibliography contains the following information:

1. A summary of the source (what kind of source is it? Who is its intended audience?)
2. An evaluation of the text (what biases might it have?)
3. An analysis of its applicability (how will it help you with your paper?)

As you advance in your academic career, your annotated bibliographies will be longer and more detailed, but for this paper you need only write three or four sentences for each source. Here is an example:

Wood, Gordon S. (2006). Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different. NewYork: Penguin Books, 2006. Revolutionary Characters contains in-depth examinations of several founding figures, including my topic, Alexander Hamilton. Each chapter relates that founder to the previous ones, as well. The author clearly admires these historical figures, but he also does a good job of examining their flaws honestly. Much of the book is about ideas and information related to my topic, but the chapter on Hamilton in particular will help me understand who he was and how he shaped America's government in its early stages.

You will produce an entry such as this for each of your sources, and in your final bibliography the sources should appear in alphabetical order based on the first letter of the entry (so, for Wood above, the letter for alphabetizing is "W").

See reverse for the specific requirements for your annotated bibliography!

Requirements:

• Your annotated bibliography will be due along with your rough draft of your individual article, which will be due on Monday, November 17th.

• It should contain the correctly formatted bibliographic entry for at leastthree sources.

• At least one of those sources must be print sources. That is, it must be a book, magazine, Cobblestone, newspaper, or other source of information that you can hold in your hands (not printed versions of information from electronic sources).

• Though it is not required, consider seeking out a primary source. That primary information may come from within a secondary source, either print or electronic.

• Each source should include an annotation of 3-5 sentences that summarizes the source, evaluates it for potential bias, and explains how the source will help you write your argument about your topic.