An annotated bibliography is a list of sources you cite such as books, journals, magazines, newspapers, websites, etc. However, each citation is followed by an annotation or description of the source. The annotation is brief and is in paragraph format. Annotations are often intended to inform the reader of the quality and usefulness of the sources cited. They may also evaluate the author’s viewpoint and authority. (In contrast, abstracts are the descriptive summaries found at the beginning of scholarly journal articles or at the beginning of full text articles in an online database.)
Follow your instructor’s guidelines for information to include in the annotation, or choose several of the items below: