One of your assignments for your paper is to create an annotated bibliography.
An annotated bibliography includes the entire citation of the material formatted correctly according the the style you choose (APA, MLA, Chicago). With each citation, you must explain the importance of each work and how it fits into your overall project.
Questions you may want to ask include:
What are the main arguments? What is the point of this book or article? What topics are covered? If someone asked what this article/book is about, what would you say?
Is it a useful source? How does it compare with other sources in your bibliography? Is the information reliable?
How does it help you shape your argument? How can you use this source in your research project? Has it changed how you think about your topic?
(Used with permission from the Purdue OWL website)
The Purdue OWL website offers help in writing your annotation and formatting your bibliography.
Annotations are written in paragraph form, usually 3-7 sentences (or 80-200 words). Depending on your assignment your annotations will generally include the following:
Not to be confused with a book review, a literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic.
Similar to primary research, development of the literature review requires four stages:
Literature reviews should comprise the following elements:
In assessing each piece, consideration should be given to:
A literature review may constitute an essential chapter of a thesis or dissertation, or may be a self-contained review of writings on a subject. In either case, its purpose is to:
The literature review itself, however, does not present new primary scholarship.
Thank you to the University of California Santa Cruz Library for sharing the above content.
The literature review is designed to do several things:
Content courtesy of CalyPoly University Library http://libguides.calpoly.edu/graduatestudent