What Is An Annotated Bibliography?
What is an annotation and a bibiography?
A bibliography is most often created to list the sources that were used in a research paper or presentation. Sometimes bibliographies are assigned as a stand-alone project so that a student will become familiar with works by a particular author or on a particular theme. Bibliographies might list a variety of source-types such as journal articles, books, websites, images, podcasts, etc.
An annotation is a summary or evaluation of a source that helps to establish its scope, relevance and/or usefulness. Annotations are written in paragraph form.
Therefore, an annotated bibliography will list sources with accompanying annotations. Preparing an annotated bibliography can help you learn about a topic, establish the relevance of sources to a topic, formulate a thesis argument, and keep track of the sources used during the research process. Professors often assign an annotated bibliography as one of the steps toward actualizing a research project.
For more information on annotated bibliographies, see:
Different Manuals of Style
The three main Manuals of Style used today are:
1. American Psychological Association (APA) Style
2. Modern Language Association (MLA) Style
3. Chicago Manual of Style
Which style should I use?
The format of your research paper and bibliography will depend on the subject of your research.
To determine which style to use, the Purdue OWL offers a Citation Style Chart that compares and contrasts the three Manuals of Style in detail.
Click Here to view the Citation Style Chart PDF!
*This guide focuses on the MLA Style and Chicago Manual of Style, as it is geared towards art and architecture research documentation.
Published Annotated Bibliographies
In addition to the online examples of annotated bibliographies (see right), there are puplished annotated bibliographies. Here are a few examples from the Pratt Libraries' collection. It might help to take a look at these.
Click on the image or link to view the PrattCat record--this will help you determine a book's location & availability.
Frank Lloyd Wright: An Annotated Bibliography by Publication Date: 1978
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