Causes of the Civil War

The annotated bibliography is an important stepping stone for writing your next assignment, a research synthesis essay in which you will ask an original, essential question and gather useful information from credible experts that helps you attempt a complex, satisfying answer. Before you can do that, you need to know background information about your topic and consider more than one perspective.

Definitions:
A bibliography is a list of sources (books, journals, Web sites, periodicals, etc.) one has used for researching a topic. Bibliographies are sometimes called “References” or “Works Cited” depending on the style format you are using. A bibliography usually just includes the bibliographic (citation) information (i.e., the author, title, publisher, etc.). YOU NEED AT LEAST FOUR ACADEMIC SOURCES IN YOUR BIBLIOGRAPHY. Newspapers and general interest magazines do not count as academic sources. Your citations must come from academic journals, university publications, or authors who have a terminal degree in their field.
An annotation is a summary and evaluation of an article, essay, book, etc..
Therefore, an annotated bibliography includes both the citation information as well as a summary and evaluation of each of the sources. You might think of it this way: If you were explaining to another person what this source said that was important, what would you tell them?
Formatting:
Use Standard MLA Formatting: The entire assignment should be typed, double spaced in 12 point, standard font. There are no extra spaces in between citations. Include your name block (your name, instructor’s name, course and section number, date of submission in European order) within the margin on the upper left corner of the first page and your header (last name and page number) above the right margin on every page, not within the body of the assignment. You should include a title that includes your research topic in the main title and the subtitle letting us know this is an annotated bibliography, like this: Vitamin Supplements: An Annotated Bibliography. Please don’t give your title any special treatment such as bolding or italicizing or enlarging. Just center it. The entries should be in alphabetical order using hanging indents the same way they would appear on a works cited list in MLA 8 format. A hang indent means that every line in a citation after the first one is indented five spaces, or half an inch, the opposite of how you would indent a paragraph. The hang indent only applies to the citation, not the annotation! Look at the examples in Chapter 24 of Everyone’s An Author. The PVCC library website has useful hints for creating hang indents in Word and Google docs at the bottom of the page here. (Links to an external site.)

Audience:
The audience for your annotated bibliography has not read the articles you are summarizing and evaluating. You will have to give them enough information so that they will understand why you have selected these articles, what these authors are trying to convey, why you think they are credible academic sources, and how these articles begin to answer your research question.

Citations:
Citations must have complete bibliographic information (although not all sources have all the MLA components; if a book doesn’t have an editor or a volume number, for example, you obviously don’t have to include one.) Long works, like books or journals, go in italics. Short works, like essays or articles, go in quotation marks. Pay careful attention to the order of information in the citation and the punctuation that comes after each component: Is it a comma or a period according to the style guide? Also pay attention to the conventions around capitalization: MLA style capitalizes every important word in a title, whereas other citation styles do not. When it comes to citation style, details matter.

Annotations:
Your annotation is composed of three components: a summary of the work, an evaluation of the source’s credibility, and an explanation of why or how you plan to include information from the source in your research essay. Keep the They Say/I Say concept in mind as you summarize and evaluate: the summary is what “They Say”; the evaluation and explanation is what “You Say.” The entire annotation should be brief: 5-8 sentences, or 100-150 words.

Summary: In two or three sentences, summarize the main findings of the source including any relevant facts and/or conclusions reached by the author(s): what the source is about, focusing on the most important highlights. (Keep the They Say/I Say concept in mind as you summarize: the first thing your source says in their introduction is NOT usually their claim because they are beginning with a “They Say” too!) If the book or article is long and only part of it is relevant to your topic, you don’t need to summarize the whole thing. Just tell the reader about the part you plan to use.

Evaluation: In a sentence or two, discuss the qualifications and perspective of the author and any other experts the author includes, especially if you think you would want to quote or paraphrase them. How did you determine this was a credible academic source? It’s not enough just to assert that a source is reliable. You need to demonstrate your source’s reliability by answering one or more of the following questions: Did the article come from a peer-reviewed academic journal (rather than a newspaper or general interest magazine)? Was the book published by a university press? Does the author have a terminal degree (i.e., a PhD) in the subject they are writing about? If so, where did they study and/or where are they teaching now? Is their research relatively recent compared to other research in the field? Do the authors consider other perspectives beside their own? How often has this article been cited by other authors? (You can see their citation numbers by searching for the author or the article in Google Scholar; see p. 524 of Everyone’s An Author, 3rd ed., or p. 495 in the 2nd ed.)

Explanation: In a sentence or two, discuss how you plan to use the source in your research paper and/or the relationship of this work to your other sources. Does it help you answer your research question? Does it provide background information? Does the author’s perspective support or conflict with other experts in the field or those of your other sources? How does it address your research question? What gaps does it fill in?

Rubric:
How your assignment will be assessed

Audience and Purpose: You chose an appropriate topic that has some connection to the concurrent crises we are living with today. You summarized your sources using objective, unbiased language and explained them in such a way that I felt like I understood what they were saying. You haven’t included irrelevant details.

Idea Development and Support: You conducted research using PVCC Library databases (including but not limited to EBSCO and JSTOR). You have included four academic sources in your bibliography, and you have adequately evaluated their credibility in the annotation. You have not included popular sources, like newspapers or magazines, or tertiary sources, like encyclopedias or textbooks.

Organization: Each source is followed by a paragraph including an accurate summary, evaluation (why you think this is a good source for your topic) and how you imagine using the source in your paper, in that order.

Grammar and Mechanics: Major errors are eliminated and minor errors are reduced through a careful proofreading of the paragraphs.

Presentation: MLA formatting is correct. (See sample essay at the end of Chapter 28 of Everyone’s An Author.)

Double space
1-inch margins
Hanging indents for sources
4-line heading on left within margin
Header on right above margin
Title = Topic or Question: An Annotated Bibliography
Documentation:

Alphabetical order, double spaced, hanging indents
Followed correct formula for each citation
Each citation is complete
Capital letters, punctuation, treatment of titles