Check out this video that breaks down what an annotated bibliography is, what the components are of the entries, and why they are important:
An Annotated Bibliography is a list of sources on your particular topic with a short paragraph that consists of the purpose, summary, and evaluation for each resource. They are useful for getting an overview of the conversation already happening about your chosen topic and compiling your research in one place for easy reference.
Click this link for a crash course on how to create an annotated bibliography:
Annotated bibliographies should be titled "Annotated Bibliography" or "Annotated List of Works Cited," and should be organized alphabetically by author. Here is an example of an MLA style annotated bibliography entry:
Annotated Bibliography
Bertot, Lillian D. The Literary Imagination of the Mariel Generation. Endowment for Cuban American
Studies of the Cuban American National Foundation, 1995.
This book-length work examines the Mariel generation of writers. Bertot argues that these writers most often comment on present-day Cuba, but their social criticism also attacks other times in Cuban history and other aspects of Cuban society. Bertot states that in the works of the Mariel generation of writers, Cuban society is in chaos and in trouble of falling apart because it is no longer in transition toward building socialism, but has failed. She notes that Reinaldo Arenas is the most prolific writer of this group, but other writers of importance are Roberto Valero, Carlos Victoria, Miguel Correa, Reinaldo García Ramos, and Juan Abreu. Bertot argues that these writers are different from the previous exile writers because they came from socialist Cuba. Bertot notes that after arriving in the United States, they characterized themselves as a literary group, creating a literary magazine, Mariel, a Magazine of Literature and Art. She states that the theme of freedom frequently appears in the Mariel generation Cuban-American writing, and that can be freedom of thought or creation and spiritual and sexual freedom. Another theme she notes is the struggle for survival, especially of the individual. Bertot’s book is essential to understanding the whole of Cuban-American literature by describing the works and themes of this group of Cuban-American writers.
(Example from: Cuban-American Fiction in English: An Annotated Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources by M. Delores Carlito. Lanham: Scarecrow, 2005.)
