Annotated Bibliographies

Information about Annotated Bibliographies

What is it?

An annotated bibliography “provides short summary notes on each text considered, commenting on its content and evaluating its worth” (Avery, 20).  Your annotated bibliography should not exceed 100 words.

Why does a student need to do these?

To demonstrate that you are confident you have enough primary and secondary resources to write a quality essay.

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Sample Annotation

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 Zoglin, Richard. “Is TV Ruining Our Children?”. Impact of Mass Media. 3rd ed. Ray Eldon Hiebert. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1995.

 

This article examines the effect TV viewing has on children and whether it should be controlled. Zoglin asserts that because TV has a powerful effect on children’s behaviour, government, industry and parents share responsibility for programming and monitoring children’s television habits. The author cites U.S.government efforts to monitor and affect TV programming. He also cites psychological research that agrees with commonly held assumptions about the negative influence of TV and counters it with reports by government agencies and university research. The article is useful as it supports the background idea that TV does have an effect on children but it does not provide enough support that violence in children is caused by violence in TV.

 

The Sample Annotation Broken Down into its Parts

 

1.  The MLA or APA citation (YOU MUST INCLUDE THIS)

             Zoglin, Richard. “Is TV Ruining Our Children?”. Impact of Mass Media. 3rd ed. Ray Eldon Hiebert . White Plains, NY: Longman, 1995.

 

2.  The topic of the article. (YOU MUST INCLUDE THIS)

This article examines the effect TV viewing has on children and whether or not it should be controlled.

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3.   The thesis of the article. (THIS IS OPTIONAL AS IT MAY BE COVERED IN THE TOPIC; POINT 2)

Zoglin asserts that because TV has a powerful effect on children’s behaviour, government, industry and parents share responsibility for programming and monitoring children’s television habits.

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 4.  The methodology and/or sources. How can we trust this author? (YOU MUST INCLUDE THIS)

 The author cites U.S. government efforts to monitor and affect TV programming. He also cites psychological research that agrees with commonly held assumptions about the negative influence of TV and counters it with reports by government agencies and university research.

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5.  The value of this book to my research. (YOU MUST INCLUDE THIS)

The article is useful as it supports the background idea that TV does have an effect on children but it does not provide enough support that violence in children is caused by violence in TV. 

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Source

Avery, Heather and Paul Gamache. Proposals & Annotated Bibliographies: An Academic Survival Guide. Peterborough: Trent University, 1996.