Annotated Bibliographies

This tutorial was created to provide students with instructions and examples for writing an annotated bibliography and links to read more. Navigate this tutorial using the topics on the left.

A bibliography is a list of books, articles, and other sources of information.

• Sometimes called References or Works Cited
• Tells people where your information came from so that they know where to go if they want to learn more
• Writing a bibliography is like writing a list of good restaurants for a friend — a quick list of recommendations

An annotation is a note about a book, article or other source, explaining what it’s about, why it’s relevant, or what point of view it demonstrates.

An annotation should do the following:

• Summarize: What is the source about?
• Evaluate: Do you think the source is reliable or questionable? Is it biased or objective? Is it up-to-date or outdated? Why do you think that?
• Connect to your topic: How is the source relevant to your research?

An annotated bibliography is a bibliography (list of sources) with annotations (notes about those sources).

• Your annotations explain why you are using these particular sources.
• Writing an annotated bibliography is like writing down a list of good restaurants for a friend, with notes about which ones have the best fish tacos, which ones are least expensive, which ones are best for large groups, etc.

For more information about writing annotated bibliographies, check out