Remember those times in middle school when your teacher forced you to write annotations for your bibliography? Did you think you escaped it? Well, now it’s back and longer than ever.
Source: Giphy
That’s right. For my CTW class, we were required to write annotations for the sources we found for our research paper. Even though it was a good exercise to get us thinking about how our sources related to each other, it made it no less fun.
For our class, the annotations were much longer than what I’ve been used to and included many other elements. In terms of my paper, here are the things I included in my annotated bibliography:
- Summary: thesis, main points, and conclusion
- Purpose and Audience: author’s purpose and intended audience for their article
- Synthesis: How does this source compare to your other sources?
- Rhetorical Differences: What are the differences you’re seeing between sources?
- What it Does For You: How will this source contribute to your own argument? How will this source fit into your research paper?
Overall, this assignment was very helpful for composing my research paper, even if it was a pain to write annotations for 12 sources…
Even if I don’t write any more annotated bibliographies in the future, I still plan on using the same concepts for other research papers. By observing details, differences, and similarities between sources, I can compose a strong paper that addresses different sides of the topic.