POLS 103: Introduction to International Relations (Thomas)

Writing Annotated Bibliographies:

Each annotation should analyze and evaluate, not just summarize, the resource you read.

 Annotations should reflect your own experience with a source – don’t rely on reviews or summaries. 

 Your annotations should address such areas as:

1. Arguments (what is the author arguing? do they do it well?);
2. Comparisons between this source and other sources you are annotating;
3. The relevance or usefulness of each source for your topic, and/or
4. Other information about the source that struck you as particularly notable or useful. 

Ideally, you should aim to cover at least a couple of these points and have ~150-200 words in each annotation. 

Format in the correct style:

Make sure that your bibliography is in the correct style. This means that

1. Your citations should follow the Chicago (or other style) standard for whatever type of source you are citing;
    
2. Each entry should be correctly formatted: with any second line of the citation and your annotations indented, in alphabetical order, and either double- or single-spaced, depending on what your style calls for. 

Additional Resources:

See this guide for more tips and a sample bibliography in Chicago Style.

There are different types of bibliographies, see this online example from the Chicago Manual of Style with more information on Annotated Bibliographies and how to format them.