8.1.1: Sample Annotated Bibliography
- Page ID
- 170610
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Creating an annotated bibliography requires you to read your sources critically. As you first collect your sources, briefly review and examine the information they contain, specifically through the lens of how each can add to your research. As you read more critically, choose those that represent different perspectives on your topic as well as those that have similar viewpoints but arrive at them in different ways or from various angles.
If you have been using notes from each source, the information you need and your ideas about the source will be right there for you. When it is time for you to write your annotations, having your thoughts already mapped out will make your work easier. Here is a sample draft annotation from one student's artificial intelligence research project.
Source Annotation Notes
| Source Citation | Buiten, Miriam C. “Towards Intelligent Regulation of Artificial Intelligence.” European Journal of Risk Regulation, vol. 10, no. 1, 2019, pp. 41–59, www.cambridge.org/ core/journals/european-journal-of-risk-regulation/article/towards-intelligent-regulation-of-artificial-intelligence/AF1AD1940B70DB88D2B24202EE933F1B. Accessed 23 Jan. 2021. |
|---|---|
| Intendend Audience | The journal is published by Cambridge University Press. Therefore, it is peer reviewed and intended for an academic audience. |
| Main Ideas, Arguments, and Themes Present | Discusses the unpredictability and difficulty of controlling artificial intelligence and examines what, if anything, can be done to increase transparency, specifically as it relates to biases of algorithms |
| Author's Point of View, Bias, and Expertise | Buiten is a law and economics professor at the University of Mannheim. She is the author or coauthor of nine publications, and contributed to others, about law and technology and digitalization, competition law, and European law. |
| Comparison with Other Sources on the Topic | Other sources call for total transparency in legal matters regarding artificial intelligence. This article questions whether such transparency is useful and/or feasible on the basis of current laws |
| Evaluation of Source's Relevance to Topic | Focuses on legal transparency for artificial intelligence, related to the question of whether artificial intelligence is harmful or helpful to society |
| Evaluation of Strengths and Weaknesses | Well-researched; uses dozens of peer-reviewed sources |
| Conclusions Drawn by Author | Transparency for artificial intelligence will be difficult and expensive to comply with and should be better defined in legal contexts before it is required. |
For some sources, you may be unable to find information for each category. In particular, for sources that are very short or from which you use only one or two bits of information, your annotations will not be long or complex. What is important at this stage is to identify how you will use your resources as they relate to your argument or thesis.
After you have outlined your sources by using the graphic organizer or a similar method, it is time to start writing the actual annotations. Remember the three tasks in writing an annotation:
- Summarize the central idea or scope of the source, particularly as it relates to your research project.
- Evaluate the source for authority, author’s perspective, reliability, validity, and bias.
- Reflect on how the source affects your research and your thinking.
Your annotated bibliography should include at least some of these functions and, depending on the source, may contain all of them. Below is an example of an annotated bibliography entry for the article on artificial intelligence. The entry begins with the correctly formatted citation, followed by two paragraphs summarizing, evaluating, and reflecting. Because you already have completed the graphic organizer, much of the analysis is already done there. Simply take that thinking and shape it into useful paragraphs, like those the writer created here.
Sample annotated bibliography entry (CC BY 4.0; Rice University & OpenStax)
Format of Contents
Works Cited Entry. Buiten, Miriam C. “Towards Intelligent Regulation of Artificial Intelligence.” European Journal of Risk Regulation, vol. 10, no. 1, 2019, pp. 41–59, www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-risk-regulation/article/towards-intelligent-regulation-of-artificial-intelligence/ AF1AD1940B70DB88D2B24202EE933F1B. Accessed 23 Jan. 2021.
Authority. The author is named and introduced with background information establishing her authority in the field. The publishing organization is also named, establishing credibility as a peer-reviewed journal.
Miriam Buiten is a law and economics professor. She has authored or coauthored eight journal articles and one book, covering topics such as law, technology, and digitalization; competition law; and European law. This article appears in a journal published by Cambridge University Press. It is peer reviewed and intended for an academic audience. The author discusses the unpredictability and difficulty of controlling artificial intelligence and examines what, if anything, can be done to increase transparency, specifically as it relates to the biases present in artificial intelligence algorithms. The author is named and introduced with background information establishing her authority in the field. The publishing organization is also named, establishing credibility as a peer-reviewed journal.
Summary. The contents of the text are summarized briefly, allowing readers to quickly understand the topic and scope of the article and to begin to piece together its relevance to the overall research project.
This source focuses on legal transparency for artificial intelligence, which is related to the question of whether artificial intelligence is harmful or helpful to society. The author argues that transparency for artificial intelligence will be difficult and expensive to comply with and should be better defined in legal contexts before it is required. Many other sources call for total transparency in legal matters regarding artificial intelligence. However, this article questions whether such transparency is useful and/or feasible based on current laws. The article is well researched, using dozens of peer-reviewed sources.
Evaluation. This paragraph includes an evaluative statement that shows the article’s validity.
This article aids the researcher in shaping her argument that oversight of artificial intelligence is a highly complex endeavor that, although important, will be difficult to achieve. It is useful to the argument that laws need to develop at a much quicker pace to keep up with rapidly developing technology.
Reflection. This part of the paragraph reveals how the source fits into the research puzzle, noting that it indirectly supports the claim that developing oversight for artificial intelligence is not a simple task and would require the law to evolve quickly.
Style. The annotation is written in third person, referring to “the researcher” and “her,” as opposed to using first-person pronouns such as me and I
MLA Works Cited Entry. The entry is formatted in MLA style as described in Chapter 7.
Format of Works Cited Entry
Buiten, Miriam C. “Towards Intelligent Regulation of Artificial Intelligence.” European Journal of Risk Regulation, vol. 10, no. 1, 2019, pp. 41–59, www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-risk-regulation/article/towards-intelligent-regulation-of-artificial-intelligence/ AF1AD1940B70DB88D2B24202EE933F1B. Accessed 23 Jan. 2021.
Author. The entry with gold highlighting begins with the author’s last name, followed by a comma and the remainder of the name. The author’s name is followed by a period.
Title of Source. The title of the source follows the author’s name in purple highlighting. The title is either italicized or placed within quotation marks, depending on the type of source, and followed by a period. Book titles are italicized, while print or online articles are placed in quotation marks, as shown.
Title of Container. The container, highlighted in teal, is the larger work to which a source belongs. An article may belong to a website or journal, a song to an album, or a video to a video-sharing site. This container comes next in the citation. It is generally italicized and followed by a comma. However, some sources do not have containers; for example, a book (versus a chapter in a book) or an entire website (versus a single page on a website) is self-contained and thus has no container to cite.
Version. Next, the version is listed, if there is one. For example, a textbook edition or version of a text would appear here, followed by a comma. This citation example doesn’t have a version, so that information is skipped.
Number. Some sources, especially academic journals, are part of a numbered sequence as shown in green highlighting. Journals usually have both volume and issue numbers; include both in your citation, separated by commas.
Publisher. The next element in the citation is the publisher, followed by a comma. The publisher does not have to be listed for some sources, including periodicals, works published by the author or editor, websites with the same name as the publisher, or websites that host works but do not actually publish them. Because this sample source is a periodical, no publisher is listed in the citation.
Publication Date. List the most recent date of publication available for the version of the source you used. The date is followed by a comma as shown in red highlighting.
Location. Location, shown in dark and light gray highlighting, refers to where in the source you found the information, including page numbers and URLs. Be as specific as possible, as this information allows readers to return to your source to read it for themselves. When listing a URL, remove the beginning tag of http:// or https://.
Alphabetizing and Indenting
Remember to list sources in alphabetical order according to the author’s last name. If the source has more than one author, list it according to the last name of the first author mentioned. If the source has no author named, insert it into your alphabetical list according to the first word in the title. For example, if Miriam C. Buiten’s name were not mentioned, you would enter the item under T, the first letter of the first word in the title, Towards. In your bibliography, double-space the citation, and do not leave a space between entries.
In an annotated bibliography, indent the entire annotation in the same manner as the source citation after the first line. In most word processing programs, you can create this formatting by highlighting the citation and annotation paragraphs and then creating a hanging indent. In Microsoft Word, open the Paragraph Settings icon on the Home tab. Under the tab that reads Indents and Spacing, find the section labeled Indentation. On the right side of that section is the label Special. Click the drop-down menu, and choose Hanging. Different word processing programs may require you to create hanging indentations in another way. Consult an MLA guide often to ensure that your citations are correct.