English 1A
Research Paper - Annotated Bibliography

Purpose:  To keep track of research findings, to avoid plagiarism, to practice skills introduced in Module 4, such as finding and evaluating sources, citing sources with proper MLA format, annotating and summarizing.

Introduction: As you research, you keep track of your findings in an annotated bibliography.  An annotated bibliography has two parts:

1. The Citation:  the citation contains all the pertinent bibliographic information about the source, such as author, date of publication, type of publication, etc.

2. The Annotation: The annotation is a short paragraph summarizing what's in the source, how it might help you, and why you chose it.

Directions:

1. Find sources according to the guidelines in web resources provided in the checklist, and in the Hacker book (R1-R3).  For this paper, you'll need at least 5 sources.  Most sources are books, articles from a periodical, or a website.  However, if you want to do field research (interviews, surveys, experiments, etc) feel free to branch out. 

2. Write the annotated bibliography.

Make sure the citation is in proper MLA format. 

For the annotation, write a paragraph or two answering the following questions.

  • What is the author's topic and thesis? 
  • How does the author develop that thesis - what evidence does he or she offer in support of the thesis? 
  • Why did you choose this source?
  • Which of your research questions did it help answer?
  • How might you use this information in your paper?
  • If you wish, include a quote from the source that you might use in your paper.

3.  Save and submit.

Remember:  your annotated bibliography isn't the final version, but rather a preliminary investigation into the information that's out there about your topic.  Feel free to add other sources and to scrap some of your original sources if they aren't proving to be a good investment. The final version will look different from the first version.

Further Resources and Examples of Annotated Bibliographies

MLA Format for Annotated Bibliographies - Lesley University Library

Sample Annotated Bibliography - Purdue University Online Writing Lab

MLA Style Examples - UNC Chapel Hill Writing Center