Don’t be frightened by the idea of writing an annotated bibliography. In fact, annotated bibliographies are very simple to write. Let’s first start by looking at what exactly an annotated bibliography is.
Annotate simply means to supply with critical or explanatory notes, or to make comments about something.
A Bibliography is a list of sources that are used or referred to. If we were making a bibliography it would only list the sources without any notes or description.
A normal MLA bibliography would look something like this:
Bibliography
Goetz, Hans-Werner, and Steven W. Rowan. Life in the Middle Ages: from the Seventh to the Thirteenth Century. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1993. Print.
The New English Bible; New Testament. [New York]: Oxford UP, 1961. Print.
"The Peasants Revolt." Middle Ages. Web. 13 Dec. 2010. <http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-peasants-revolt.htm>.
To make this bibliography an annotated bibliography we just need to add a review under each source.
So now you can see that an annotated bibliography is notes and comments about a credible source but in a specific format. The three most commonly used formats are:
Before looking at what makes these styles different lets first look at how they’re similar.
Notice that under each source I only have one paragraph. Each paragraph is divided into two parts. The first three or four sentences summarize the article, and the second half of each paragraph is a summary or reflection about what I thought of the reading.
Source: Tyler Jensen
For more information on writing MLA, APA and chicago style annotated bibliographies go to:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/03/