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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

This guide describes how to successfully complete specific assignments commonly assigned in social sciences and behavioral sciences courses.

Definition

An annotated bibliography is a list of resources related to a particular topic that include a brief descriptive or evaluative summary. Annotated bibliographies can be arranged chronologically by date of publication, thematically, or alphabetically by author's last name. Annotated citations can include print and/or digital materials, such as, books, newspaper articles, journal articles, dissertations, government documents, pamphlets, web sites, etc., multimedia sources like films and audio recordings, or documents and artifacts housed in special or archival collections.

Beatty, Luke and Cynthia Cochran. Writing the Annotated Bibliography: A Guide for Students and Researchers. New York: Routledge, 2020; Harner, James L. On Compiling an Annotated Bibliography. 2nd edition. New York: Modern Language Association, 2000.

Importance of a Good Annotated Bibliography

In lieu of writing a formal research paper or in preparation for a larger research and writing project, your professor may ask you to develop an annotated bibliography. An annotated bibliography may be assigned for for the following reasons:

  1. To show that you can identify and describe the literature about a research problem;
  2. To demonstrate that you can conduct an effective and thorough evaluation of prior research;
  3. To develop skills in discerning the most relevant studies from those that only have superficial relevance to your topic;
  4. To gain an understanding of the ways in which debates about the research problem emerged among scholars;
  5. To explore how different types of sources contribute to understanding the research problem;
  6. To be thoroughly engaged with individual sources in order to strengthen your analytical skills; and, in some cases,
  7. To share sources among your classmates so that, collectively, everyone in the class obtains a comprehensive understanding of the topic.

On a broader level, writing an annotated bibliography can lay the foundation for conducting a larger research project. It serves as a method to evaluate prior research and where your proposed study may fit within it. By critically analyzing and synthesizing the contents of a variety of sources, you can begin to evaluate what the key issues are in relation to the research problem and, by so doing, gain a more informed perspective about the deliberations taking place among scholars. As a result of this analysis, you are better prepared to develop your own arguments and contributions to the literature.

As a researcher, creating a good annotated bibliography...

  • Encourages you to think critically about the content of the works you are using, their place within the broader field of study, and their relation to your own research, assumptions, and ideas;
  • Gives you practical experience conducting a thorough review of the literature concerning a research problem;
  • Provides evidence that you have read and understood your sources;
  • Establishes validity for the research you have done and of you as a researcher;
  • Gives you the opportunity to consider and include key digital, multimedia, or archival materials among your review of the literature;
  • Situates your study and underlying research problem in a continuing conversation among scholars;
  • Provides an opportunity for others to determine whether a source will be helpful for their research; and,
  • Could help researchers determine whether they are interested in a topic by providing background information and an idea of the kind of scholarly investigations that have been conducted in a particular area of study.

In summary, writing an annotated bibliography helps you develop skills related to critically reading and identifying the key aspects of a research study and to effectively synthesize the content in a way that helps the reader determine its validity and usefulness in relation to the research problem.

NOTE: Do not confuse annotating source materials in the social sciences with annotating source materials in the arts and humanities. Rather than encompassing forms of synopsis and critical analysis, an annotation assignment in arts and humanities courses refers to the systematic interpretation of literary texts, art works, musical scores, performances, and other forms of creative human communication for the purpose of clarifying and encouraging analytical thinking about what the author(s)/creator(s) have written or created. They are assigned to encourage students to actively engage with the text or creative object.

Annotated Bibliographies. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Annotated Bibliographies. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Annotated Bibliography. The Waldin Writing Center. Waldin University; Hartley, James. Academic Writing and Publishing: A Practical Guide. (New York: Routledge, 2008), p. 127-128; Writing an Annotated Bibliography. Assignment Structures and Samples Research and Learning Online, Monash University; Kalir, Remi H. and Antero Garcia. Annotation. Essential Knowledge Series. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2021.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Types

  1. Descriptive: This annotation describes the source without summarizing the actual argument, hypothesis, or message in the content. Like an abstract, it describes what the source addresses, what issues are being investigated, and any special features, such as appendices or bibliographies, that are used to supplement the main text. What it does not include is any evaluation or criticism of the content. This type of annotation seeks to answer the question: Does this source cover or address the topic I am researching? Collectively, this type of annotated bibliography synthesizes prior research about a topic or serves as a review of the literature before conducting a broader research study.
  2. Informative/Summative: This type of annotation summarizes what the content, message, or argument of the source is. It generally contains the hypothesis, methodology, and conclusion or findings, but like the descriptive type, you are not offering your own evaluative comments about such content. This type of annotation seeks to answer these types of questions: What are the author's main arguments? What are the key findings? What conclusions or recommended actions did the author state? Collectively, this type of annotated bibliography summarizes the way in which scholars have studied and documented outcomes about a topic.
  3. Evaluative/Critical/Analytical: This annotation includes your own evaluative statements about the content of a source. It is the most common type of annotation your professor will ask you to write. Your critique may focus on describing a study's strengths and weaknesses or it may describe the applicability of the conclusions to the research problem you are studying. This type of annotation seeks to answer these types of questions: Is the reasoning sound? Is the methodology sound? Does this source address all the relevant issues? How does this source compare to other sources on this topic? Collectively, this type of annotated bibliography offers a detailed analysis and critical assessment of the research literature about a topic.

NOTE:  There are a variety of strategies you can use to critically evaluate a source based on its content, purpose, and format. A description of these strategies can be found here.

II.  Choosing Sources for Your Bibliography

There are two good strategies to begin identifying possible sources for your bibliography--one that looks back into the literature and one that projects forward based on tracking how original sources are subsequently cited by researchers.

  1. The first strategy is to identify several recently published [within the past few years] scholarly books using the USC Libraries catalog or journal articles found by searching a comprehensive, multidisciplinary database like ProQuest Multiple. Review the list of references to sources cited by the author(s). Review these citations to identify prior research published about your topic. For a complete list of scholarly databases GO HERE. For a list of databases by discipline or subject area GO HERE.
  2. The second strategy is to identify one or more books, book chapters, journal articles, or research reports on your topic and paste the title of the item into Google Scholar [e.g., from Negotiation Journal, entering the title of the article, "Civic Fusion: Moving from Certainty through Not Knowing to Curiosity"]. If it is a short title or it uses a lot of common words, place quotation marks around the title so Google Scholar searches the source as a phrase rather than a combination of individual words. Below the citation will likely be a "Cited by" reference link followed by a number [e.g., Cited by 45]. This number refers to the number of times a source has subsequently been cited by other authors in other sources after the item you found was published.

Your method for selecting which sources to annotate depends on the purpose of the assignment and the research problem you are investigating. For example, if the course is on international social movements and the research problem you choose to study is to compare cultural factors that led to protests in Egypt with the factors that led to protests against the government of the Philippines in the 1980's, you should consider including non-U.S., historical, and, if possible, foreign language sources in your bibliography.

NOTE:  Appropriate sources to include can be anything that you believe has value in understanding the research problem. Be creative in thinking about possible sources, including non-textual items, such as, films, maps, photographs, and audio recordings, or archival documents and primary source materials, such as, diaries, government documents, collections of personal correspondence, meeting minutes, or official memorandums. If you want to include these types of sources in your annotated bibliography, consult with a librarian if you're not sure where to locate them.

III.  Strategies to Define the Scope of Your Bibliography

It is important that the scope of sources cited and summarized in your bibliography are well-defined and sufficiently narrow in coverage to ensure that you're not overwhelmed by the number of potential items to consider including. Many of the general strategies used to narrow a topic for a research paper are the same that be applied to framing the scope of sources to include in an annotated bibliography.

  • Aspect -- choose one lens through which to view the research problem, or look at just one facet of your topic [e.g., rather than annotating a bibliography of studies about the role of food in religious rituals, create a bibliography on the role of food in Hindu ceremonies].
  • Time -- the shorter the time period to be covered, the more narrow the focus [e.g., rather than political scandals of the 20th century, cite literature on political scandals during the 1980s].
  • Comparative -- a list of resources that focus on comparing two or more issues related to the broader research topic can be used to narrow the scope of your bibliography [e.g., rather than college student activism during the 20th century, cite literature that compares student activism in the 1930s and the 1960s]
  • Geography -- the smaller the domain of analysis, the fewer items available to consider including in your bibliography [e.g., rather than cite sources about trade relations in West Africa, include only sources that examine, as a case study, trade relations between Niger and Cameroon].
  • Type -- focus your bibliography on a specific type or class of people, places, or things [e.g., rather than health care provision in Japan, cite research on health care provided to the elderly in Japan].
  • Source -- your bibliography only includes specific sources of materials [e.g., only books, only scholarly journal articles, only films, only archival materials, etc.]. In theses cases, be sure to describe why only one type of source is appropriate.
  • Combination -- use two or more of the above strategies to focus your bibliography very narrowly or to broaden coverage of a very specific research problem [e.g., cite literature only about political scandals during the 1980s [time] that took place in Great Britain [geography].

IV.  Assessing the Relevance and Value of Sources

All the items included in your bibliography should reflect the source's contribution to understanding the research problem. In order to determine how you will use the source or define its contribution, you will need to critically evaluate the quality of the central argument within the source or, in the case of including non-textual items, determine how the source contributes to understanding the research problem [e.g., if the bibliography lists sources about outreach strategies to homeless populations, a non-textual source would be a film that profiles the life of a homeless person].

Specific ways to assess a research study possible inclusion in an annotated bibliography can be an item’s overall value in relation to other sources on the topic, its limitations, its effectiveness in defining the research problem, the methodology used, the quality of the evidence, and the strength of the author’s conclusions and/or recommendations.

With this in mind, determining whether a source should be included in your bibliography depends on how you think about and answer the following questions related to its content:

  • Are you interested in the way the author(s) frame the research questions or in the way the author goes about investigating the questions [the method]?
  • Does the research findings make new connections or promote new ways of understanding the problem?
  • Are you interested in the way the author(s) use a theoretical framework or a key concept?
  • Does the source refer to and analyze a particular body of evidence that you want to highlight?
  • How are the author's conclusions relevant to your overall investigation of the topic?

V.  Format and Content

The format of an annotated bibliography can differ depending on its purpose and the nature of the assignment. Contents may be listed alphabetically by author, arranged chronologically by publication date, or arranged under headings that list different types of sources [i.e., books, articles, government documents, research reports, etc.]. If the bibliography includes a lot of sources, items may also be subdivided thematically or by time periods of coverage [e.g., 1990-2000, 2001-2010, etc.]. Most annotated bibliography assignments will include a rubric that defines the format. If not, ask your professor for specific guidelines in terms of length, scope, arrangement, and type of annotation you are to write.

Introduction
Your bibliography should begin with an introduction that describes the research problem being covered, including any limits placed on materials to be included [e.g., only items published in the last ten years], explanation of the method used to identify possible items [such as databases you used and the methods to search for sources], the rationale for selecting the items, and, if appropriate, a detailed explanation stating why specific types of items were deliberately excluded. This latter element is important if there are types of items relevant to the topic that you chose to exclude [e.g., you decided to exclude government documents on overuse of national parks]. The introduction's length will generally depend on the complexity of the topic and the variety of sources included.

Citation
This first part of your entry contains the bibliographic information written in a standard documentation style, such as, MLA, Chicago, or APA. Ask your professor what citation style is most appropriate. If your professor does not have a preferred citation style, choose the type you are most familiar with or that is used predominantly within your major or area of study and apply it consistently throughout your bibliography.

Annotation
The second part of your entry should summarize, in paragraph form, the content of the source. What you say about the source is dictated by the type of annotation you are asked to write [see above]. In most cases, however, your annotation should describe the content and provide critical commentary that evaluates the source and its relationship to the research problem.

In general, the annotation should include one to three sentences about the item in the following order: (1) an introduction of the item; (2) a brief description of what the study was intended to achieve and the research methods used to gather information; (3) the scope of study [i.e., limits and boundaries of the research related to sample size, area of concern, targeted groups examined, or extent of focus on the problem]; (4) a statement about the study's usefulness in relation to your research and the topic; (5) a note concerning any limitations found in the study; (6) a summary of any recommendations or further research offered by the author(s); and, (7) a critical statement that elucidates how the source clarifies your topic or pertains to the research problem.

Things to think critically about when writing the annotation include:

  • Does the source offer a good introduction on the issue?
  • Does the source effectively address the issue?
  • Would novices find the work accessible or is it intended for an audience already familiar with the topic?
  • What limitations does the source have [reading level, timeliness, reliability, etc.]?
  • Are any special features, such as, appendices or non-textual elements effectively presented?
  • What is your overall reaction to the source?
  • If it's a website or online resource, is it up-to-date, well-organized, and easy to read, use, and navigate?

Length
An annotation can vary in length from a few sentences to more than a page, single-spaced. However, they are normally about 300 words--the length of a standard paragraph. The length also depends on the purpose of the annotated bibliography [critical assessments are generally lengthier than descriptive annotations] and the type of source [e.g., books generally require a more detailed annotation than a magazine article]. If you are just writing summaries of your sources, the annotations may not be very long. However, if you are including an extensive analysis of each source, you'll need to devote more space.

Annotated Bibliographies. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Annotated Bibliographies. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Annotated Bibliography. The Writer’s Handbook. Writing Center. University of Wisconsin, Madison; Annotated Bibliography. Writing Center. Walden University; Annotated Bibliography. Writing Skills, Student Support and Development, University of New South Wales; Engle, Michael et al. How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography. Olin Reference, Research and Learning Services. Cornell University Library; Guidelines for Preparing an Annotated Bibliography. Writing Center at Campus Library. University of Washington, Bothell; Harner, James L. On Compiling an Annotated Bibliography. 2nd edition. New York: Modern Language Association, 2000; How to Write an Annotated Bibliography. Information and Library Services. University of Maryland; Knott, Deborah. Writing an Annotated Bibliography. The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Norton, Donna. Top 32 Effective Tips for Writing an Annotated Bibliography Top-notch study tips for A+ students blog; Writing from Sources: Writing an Annotated Bibliography. The Reading/Writing Center. Hunter College.