studyskills.federation.edu.au
CRICOS Provid er No. 00103D
Annotated Bibliography: Health
What is it?
An annotated bibliography is a combination of the two elements above. It provides bibliographi c
information on a particular source, plus a paragraph that summarises and evaluates the content of the
source. Depending on the assessment task, your paragraph may vary in length from about 150 words.
Clarify the length with your lecturer.
Why write one?
Depending on the assessment, your purpose for writing an annotated bibliography may be to:
• review the literature of a particular subject;
• demonstrate the quality and depth of reading that you have done;
• show the range of sources available—such as journals, books, web sites and magazine articles;
• highlight sources that may be of interest to other readers and researchers;
• explore and organise sources f or further research.
When set as an assignment, an annotated bibliography allows you to become more familiar with
material published on a particul ar topic. Given that, it is a useful task to undertake to increase your
understanding of a topic.
Structure
An annotated bibliography generally contains five parts:
1.A full citation of the source (using a referencing style relevant to your course, e.g. APA, Chicago, etc.)
2.A general statement about the author’s purpose for writing the source
3.A short summary of the content
4.An evaluation of the content
5.Your reflection on the useful ness of the source
The table overleaf outlines the parts you need to include in an annotated bibliography. Alongside each
part are suggestions for sentence starters.
Definitions
Annotation = a concise summary or evaluation of the value or relevance of
a source
Bibliography = an alphabetical list of sources
