9 Application: Writing an Annotated Bibliography and Report
Assignment Description
Students will choose a topic related to the class prompt and locate seven varied primary/secondary, scholarly/popular/trade sources concerned with their issue. They will write a 3-5 sentence annotation for each source that summarizes the text’s primary claims and strategies, situates its credibility and bias, and reflects on what they can use the source to understand about their topic. Their annotations should then be gathered into an annotated bibliography and formatted according to MLA guidelines.
Students will then compose a 500-word report of their research that describes their issue, the kinds of sources/conversations they found, compares and evaluates specific texts or groups of texts, and synthesizes overall themes. Their overview should include quotations, paraphrasing, and summary. Remember, a report should offer your reader information about your topic and about sources related to it; a report might take a stance but it only does so after offering nuanced, thoughtful, respectful, and critical discussion of multiple perspectives and various sources.
Please note that sources can be of any multimedia type ranging from scholarly sources to news articles to YouTube videos to archival documents to Tweets and social media posts. The more variation, the better because the goal is for students to practice asking and answering: What kind of source is it? What are its affordances? What are its limitations? And to also practice exposition and synthesis.
Students’ annotated bibliography and report should be formatted according to MLA standards. They should submit seven 3-5 sentence annotated bibliography entries and one two-page source report.
Prompt Suggestion I: In Unit 1, you told us a story about why you chose your current major and lifepath. In Unit 2, please identify an issue (i.e. a problem or a topic of debate or discussion) related to your current career trajectory. For example, if you are studying nursing, you might consider researching vaccine hesitancy or healthcare deserts in Texas. If you are studying English, you might consider researching book banning or pandemic-related literacy rates.
Prompt Suggestion II: Choose a (real or mythic) person, group of people, place, or time and research the stories told about it. For example, you could research stories told about Santa Claus, Area 51, your hometown, Neverland, witches, labor unions, Ancient Egypt, the Titanic, Denton’s Goat Man Bridge, the Wizard of Oz, the Republic or Democratic or Green party, the old woman who lived in a shoe, etc. Then find 7 diverse sources that retell or discuss these stories. Where do sources say the story started? Who told/tells it? How does it move across time and space? Are there different versions? What are similarities or differences in how the story is told or how different audiences feel/think about it?
Prompt Suggestion III: Identify where, for you, is a homeplace (bell hooks). Remember, a homeplace can be a geographical, communal, or discursive—a place you live in and are even when you are “away.” Then find 7 diverse sources that talk about your homeplace. These can be articles or oral histories about your hometown or your community. They can be posts or videos or blogs created by other people who inhabit these spaces. They can be scholarly studies or stories about homeplaces like yours. You can also interview someone who shares your homeplace.
It might help you to review the two chapters before this page for help with your annotated bibliography and your report.
Step 1: Understanding the Assignment
- Step 1: Read the prompt slowly and carefully. Then read it again, identifying crucial tasks and details for yourself. Again, this video from the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill can help. Ask your teach to clarify key tasks and details and other questions you have.Step 2: Use this mentor paper and the Genre Features Chart below to understand the assignment event better. >>> Please note this student sample was written in response to Prompt #2.
Genre Feature Questions What do you notice about each feature? Describe these features in the boxes below. Where is the title and dedication and what do they look like? What does the annotated bibliography look like? How are the annotations formatted? What does the report look like? How is it formatted? How many sources are there? What order are they in? What kind of information do the annotations offer? What kinds of questions are they answering? What kind of information does the report offer? What kinds of questions is it answering? In the report, where do you see the author quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing? How are the annotations organized? How is the report organized? How would you describe the author’s voice, language, and sentence style?
Step 2: Prewriting
Complete the Looping Brainstorming Activity below to generate research topic ideas related to your chosen field of study.
- Set a timer for five minutes. Then, write continuously in response to the class prompt without stopping, even if nothing specific comes to mind. After 5 minutes, review your freewrite, highlighting anything interesting. Then, reset the timer and continuously write again, focusing only on the ideas you highlighted in the first rewrite. Repeat this process several more times, or until you settle on a topic that you are interested in researching. Also, feel free to take breaks between each round of timed writing, particularly if you are struggling to identify a focus.
- Once you have identified a topic, generate research questions or theories related to your chosen field of study. The looping activity can help you begin do this. Start by circling or underlining the buzzwords or buzzphrases that appear in your prewrite. These can be your first search terms. Be sure to save any relevant sources you find that you are most interested in exploring further. It can be helpful to keep a GoogleDoc of links and descriptions. See the following helpful links for assistance with writing research questions and generating search terms.
- Once you have gained exposure to a variety of sources, select seven primary/secondary and scholarly/popular/trade sources that you believe may inform the research questions or theories related to your topic. Your instructor may have specific guidelines for what kind of sources you should have so be sure to check assignment descriptions.
- Closely read each sources, identifying key information
- Then, complete the Synthesizing Sources Worksheet to compare and contrast your selected sources, and synthesize themes
Step 3: Outlining Your Report
Using your completed Synthesizing Sources Worksheet graphic organizer, complete the following to assist you in writing the report portion of this assignment.
| What is the overall topic? Give a brief overview of your topic, including background, definitions, theories, or any other explanation that best explains the origins of this topic. Explain your purpose/goals and issue regarding this topic. | |
| Overall, what types of sources did you find? Where did you look? Were there kinds of sources that were easier or harder to locate? | |
| Do you think any of your texts were written for similar communities? Do you think they had different audiences in mind? | |
| Did you find texts making similar statements or sharing similar findings? How were they similar? | |
| Did you find texts that disagreed with each other or had different information? What did they say differently? | |
| Did you find texts that included similar content or components? Did several of your sources use data and research? Did any include multimedia like photographs or video? Did sources use similar or different diction to address their audience? Did any have similar styles? | |
| What did you notice about your sources as a whole? Do they tend to talk about similar things or speak to similar communities? Do they tend to have similar biases or different voices? What can you learn from them all together? What can’t you learn from them all together? |
An important note about genre and voice
In Unit 1, you wrote in a flexible, personable genre that encourages emotion, lyricism, and opinion. You told a story to tell your audience something about yourself. In an annotated bibliography and report, you are writing exposition and description, giving your reader important information about an important topic and about specific sources. What, then, should your voice sound like? How can you best offer readers clear explanations, nuanced perspectives, and respectful evaluation?
Step 4: Drafting Your Annotated Bibliography
Getting started
Complete the attached Annotation Worksheet to begin drafting the annotation entries for each of your sources and gathering important source information.
Drafting your annotated bibliography
Fist, draft your MLA-formatted bibliographic entries with your source title, author, publication information, URL if applicable, etc. When you are done, arrange them in alphabetical order by author last name.
Second, write entries for each of your sources, using the responses from the worksheet. Keep in mind that each entry should be 3-5 sentences or 150 wordUsing your prewriting and outline assignments, complete the following to begin drafting your Annotated Bibliography Report:
- Open with a summary that offers an explanation of your topic, including background, definition, and/or descriptions. Explain why this topic matters to you.
- State your research questions regarding your topic and what you hope to learn or achieve by asking these questions.
- Explain what you learned from specific sources in reference to your questions and which sources helped you the most. Explain which sources you found to be less effective or relevant and why.
- Explain what you found to be missing from your research, and what you hope to learn in the future. Include properly cited text evidence to support.
- Remember, this portion of the assignment should not be a discussion of each source independently. It should synthesize your research with written observations that reflect your complete understanding of the topic, and a thorough analysis of your selected sources collectively
Step 5: Peer Review
The following process is adapted from Oleksiak’s Slow Peer Review strategies. The following instructions are written to guide the reviewer. During this peer review process, the writer’s job is to listen to feedback. The writer will learn more about their writing by listening and taking notes.
1. Have the writer read through their report aloud. This time is meant for the reviewers to absorb the information and notice the structure of their report. The reviewers DO NOT mark up the paper, make comments or corrections, or provide any feedback.
2. Read through the paper again silently and individually – both the report and the annotations. This time should be used to develop a relationship between the reviewer and the piece. The reviewer should highlight/underline parts of the writing that are unclear, parts they have questions about, and parts they enjoy.
3. Have a conversation with the writer. Begin by only sharing the parts of the report or annotations that were strong or enjoyable. This will inform the writer of their strengths and the things to continue doing. Then ask the writer to talk about their writing process for the piece: their goals, their strategies, their struggles.
4. Read through the paper one more time. This time is meant for evaluation, keeping in mind the writer’s strategies and struggles. Remember that evaluation is not critique, meaning that the reviewer should focus on the material present and not what is wrong or missing. The reviewers should focus on the movement of the paper. Ensure that the ideas that the writer has discussed are moving coherently and making sense. Ensure that your questions make sense now that you’ve talked to the writer and understand more about their processes. Ensure that you can spot where the writer is fulfilling assignment requirements.
5. Review the paper with the writer. Now the reviewers should share their questions and converse with the group. This time can be used to talk about ways the writer can clarify certain areas and brainstorm ways to better communicate ideas or clarify portions of the paper. Use the rubric or assignment description to assess where the writer is. If there is something clearly missing, then the reviewer should take note of this.
Finally, based on your review and conversation, help the writer make a revision plan (see Step 6) …
Step 6: Revising
With your peer review partner, strategize a revision plan. Remember, “revision” is not editing. Editing or proofreading takes place separately, as the final act, after revision, just before submitting the essay. That’s where you check for issues like spelling and capitalization. Revision is substantive. It involves clarifying your ideas by moving things around, adding material, and cutting content. It involves rearranging paragraphs and sentences for logic and clarity.
Compare the two following revision plans adapted from the Sweetland Center for Writing revision plan handout. Which plan is easier to understand and follow? Which do you have lots of questions about? Which would actually help you accomplish your goals?
| Example Revision Plan #1 | Example Revision Plan #2 |
| 1. Revise introduction | 1. I need to take more time in my introduction to identify my homeplace as my research topic and |
| 2. Add missing content | 2. In the second paragraph, I say my sources are written for different audiences but I don’t say which different communities I think each is written for and why. I need to specify each source’s community. |
| 3. Fix grammar | 3. My second body paragraph has four run on sentences that are very hard for the reader to follow and understand my meaning. I need to separate these into shorter more direct sentences and switch to active voice. |
| 4. Cut content | 4. I have a whole section after the problem that repeats a lot of the information in the intro. It defines the problem more as the conclusion of the essay, but I already defined the problem, so I think I can cut most of this material. I was just padding space to meet the page count requirement, but I’ll meet the requirements by adding in good, purposeful information to develop the solution by adding more details to my solution and giving more examples alternative solutions |
Example Revision Plan #2 gives you specific, direct, achievable goals that you can actively cross off when they are complete and know you have made substantive improvements to your piece.
Step 7: Polishing
Review your Annotated Bibliography Report checking for minor errors or distractions before submitting your final draft.
Helpful Resources:
- Library: Tools for Academic Writing: Annotated Bibliography. library.park.edu/writing/annotated-bib.
- LibGuides: Annotated Bibliographies: A Step by Step Guide: Home. libguides.lmu.edu/c.php?g=324075&p=2173677.
- Annotated Bibliographies – Purdue OWL® – Purdue University. owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/annotated_bibliographies/index.html. Accessed 9 June 2024.
- Writing Resources | Write Site | Texas Woman’s University. twu.edu/write-site/writing-resources.
