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CSC 493 Computer Science Capstone: Annotated Bibliographies

What Is an Annotated Bibliography?

Annotated Bibliography:

Sometimes people confuse Literature Reviews with Annotated Bibliographies although both are similar in purpose, to survey the literature, they are quite different in format.

So what is a annotated bibliography? "... is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a brief (usually about 150 words) descriptive and evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited.” Definition from Cornell University Library, available at https://guides.library.cornell.edu/annotatedbibliography Accessed September 29, 2021

To write a good annotated bibliography you need to be:

  • Concise: Go to the point of what is the book/article about, in few words, summarize.
  • Evaluative: Determine who is the author, what is his/her expertise in the topic, how reliable is the information
  • Critical: Reflect on what is the strength and weakness of the work, what is missing, etc.
  • Comparative: how each piece review compares to other similar works

Useful sites with tips on how to write an Annotated Bibliography:

RefWorks Guide

ACM SIG Proceedings Style for CSC493

Important note for CSC493:

For the last step of this process (numbered 4.), enter ACM SIG Proceedings instead of APA or MLA. The search is not case-sensitive.

ACM SIG Proceedings ("et al." for 3+ authors) is the citation style for this course.

How to create an annotated bibliography in RefWorks

Follow the steps below to create an annotated bibliography using the New RefWorks:

  1. Find the reference for the annotation.
     
  2. Go to the Edit (pencil icon).
     
  3. Remove the content from the abstract field.  Type in your own annotation into the Abstract field as shown below.

  1. After you type your annotation, click Save on the top and close the window.
     
  2. Repeat steps 1-4 for all references you want included in your annotated bibliography.
     
  3. Go to the Cite menu (quotation mark) and select Create Bibliography.
  4.  Under output style, search for and select APA 6th - Annotated with Abstracts - American Psychological Association, 6th Edition as shown below or MLA 8th - Annotated with Abstracts.