Annotated Bibliographies for Education & Behavioral Sciences: Step 1: Verify assignment details

When in doubt, always check with your professor.

Send your professor an email, or see if you can ask your professor after class.

If you cannot get a hold of your professor, ask your Liaison Librarian, or a librarian from Reese Library's Ask a Librarian service. 

The librarian can review the assignment description you have, and can at least point you to the direction of quality resources for your research topic, until you hear back from your professor.

As seen in the brief definition, an annotated Bibliography can include any credible source, like a book, a website, a journal article, a report, a film, and so on. Furthermore, an annotated bibliography may be either descriptive or evaluative.

Check your assignment requirements to verify the following. If in doubt, check with your instructor regarding the:

Type/s of source you can include 

What type/s of sources can you cite and annotate? Is the assignment restricted to, for example: 

• any type of resources? 
• peer-reviewed journal articles only? 
• peer-reviewed, empirical research articles?

Type of annotation to write

Annotated Bibliographies have two types of annotations:

• Descriptive Annotation: Summarizes the content of the publication, pointing out key topics, significant features, intended audience, etc.
• Evaluative Annotation: In addition to a description, offers a brief critical assessment of the publication, assessing its relevance, accuracy, reliability, or usefulness for a particular audience or purpose.

The further you progress in your studies, the more likely it is expected of you to write an evaluative annotation, to show you can critically evaluate the source.