What is an annotated bibliography?

Purpose of an annotated bibliography

Depending on your specific assignment, the purpose of an annotated bibliography may be to:
- review the literature of a particular subject;
- demonstrate the quality and depth of reading that you have done;
- show the scope of sources available-such as journals, books, web sites and magazine articles;
- highlight sources that may be of interest to other readers and researchers;
- explore and organise sources for further research.

When set as an assignment, such as in Assignment 1 in BUS100 Professional Communication Skill, an annotated bibliography allows you to:
- develop research skills
- become acquainted with the material available on a particular topic
- practice your referencing
- develop an ability to identify good from poor sources
- summarise information concisely.

All these skills are essential to academic success and will allow you to present reasoned and justified responses in professional life.

As part of a larger assignment, a good annotated bibliography:
- encourages you to think critically about the content of the works you are using, their place within a field of study, and their relation to your own research and ideas
- proves you have read and understand your sources
- establishes your work as a valid source and you as a competent researcher
- situates your study and topic in a continuing professional conversation
- provides a way for others to decide whether a source will be helpful to their research if they read it
- could help interested researchers determine whether they are interested in a topic by providing background information and an idea of the kind of work going on in a field.

How do you write an annotated bibliography?

- a summary of the main arguments or ideas presented by the author
- a critique or evaluation of the source's usefulness, reliability, objectivity or bias, and a comparison with other sources
- a reflection on how the source fits into your research (this would be required if the annotated bibliography was part of a larger research assignment).

Contents of an annotated bibliography may include (in very brief summary form):
- Citation
- Introduction
- Aims and research methods
- Usefulness to your research (if part of a larger assignment)
- Limitations
- Conclusions
- Reflection (is it really worth using - to what extent e.g. primary support for your research point or more a contributing guide to future research).

For the purposes of Assignment 2 of BUS100 Professional Communication Skills, the sources you present in your annotated bibliography should be:

- Have a heading as given in your assignment description
- Be presented in alphabetical order according to the (first) author's name
- Have a 1 line space between the Source heading, the citation, the summary paragraph and the evaluation paragraph

An example of an annotated bibliography set out as required for Assessment 2 of BUS100 Professional Communication Skills is contained in the following section. Please note the sources used in the example cannot be used in your assessment as they are on a completely different topic.