Annotated Bibliography

The purpose of this assignment is to survey the current scholarly literature related to your topic.  You have chosen your topic and refined your thesis statement. Now you will survey resources related to your topic and thesis.

The purpose of an annotated bibliography is to evaluate the quality and relevance of research sources. An annotated bibliography includes a list of research sources along with a brief paragraph (usually about 150 words) describing and evaluating the source. The description is called the annotation.For this assignment, you will review and annotate three credible, scholarly resources.

How to Construct an Annotated Bibliography
Sample APA annotated bibliography entry:
Torgan, C. (2015). Immune system shaped by environment more than genes. Retrieved
from http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/february2015/02022015immune.htm
As published by the National Institutes of Health, Torgan (2015) reviews research
from Stanford University School of Medicine comparing the genetic and environmental
effects on the immune system, finding that the environmental factors affect the immune
system to a greater degree. Freely available on the government website, this article
summarizes the latest research about the topic in a way that is accessible for other
researchers and the general public equally. The selected points featured at the
beginning of the article improve accessibility for non-medically trained readers. The
premise of the reviewed study postulated that comparing the immune system
parameters of identical twins and fraternal twins would allow a distinction to be made
between genetic and environmental effects. By using twins for the research study, the
researchers dismissed the possibility of biased results or uncontrollable variables;
instead, the study highlights how the variations caused by genes have less impact than
the variations caused by the environment. The results of this study have implications
for determining how to modify treatments for infectious diseases, such as influenza
which was used in the study. The brevity of the article effectively communicated
complex immunology in easily understood terms and provided realistic applications for
the research.
How to Construct an Annotated Bibliography
How can I put all of that together into an annotated bibliography entry?
Many annotated bibliography entries are about a paragraph in length. APA format,
dictates a length of 150-250 words.
Make sure to include these pieces in your annotation:
1) Who wrote the article and who is the article written for (intended audience)?
2) What was the purpose of the research in the article?
3) What was the methodology of the research?
4) Was it original research or did it review other research?
5) What were the results of the research?
6) What was the scope of the research?
7) Did the article have any special features, like charts and tables to explain the
research?
8) What strengths/weaknesses did the article have?
9) Did the source feature any bias or make any presumptions that may have
skewed the results?