Guidelines and rubric for annotated

bibliography
This annotated bibliography (AB) is intended to prepare you to write your literature review
(LR), so choose a topic that you would like to research for the rest of the course!   
If you are already researching a particular topic with an advisor or research group, great! You
can use that as the topic for your AB and LR.   
If not, this is your chance to choose a topic that interests you, without having to match the
interest of an advisor. This topic might even become a topic on which you eventually do your
own research and publish articles. Or it might become one of various topics in your career
that you research and then decide to move on to other interests. Either way is OK; you will
get experience in writing about other people’s research, an essential skill for a graduate
student.  
For the LR, you will be reviewing minimum of 15 articles, but you will choose just 5 of those
articles for this AB. (You probably have not found all your articles for the LR at this point,
and that’s OK. You only need 5 for the AB. But don’t stop searching for articles when
you’ve found 5—find enough that you can choose the 5 that you would most like to include
in this AB. When you do this, you’re getting head start on the LR.)
For the AB you need to write an annotated bibliographic entry for each of your 5 articles.
An annotated bibliographic entry consists of two things:

1. The bibliographic information for the article (title, author, year of publication, etc. (APA
7th Ed Style)
2. An annotation (i.e. a brief summary and evaluation).

The bibliographic information for all entries must be complete, and all in the same reference
style (we will use APA). Outside this class, annotations can vary in their form, depending on
who is creating the annotated bibliography, but in this class, they are all required to have the
following format: 

▪ 1 descriptive sentence that summarizes the entire article

▪  informative sentences that summarizes the main issues/findings discussed in the article
▪  evaluative sentences discussing your own opinions about these issues

For the AB, you will:

1. write the bibliographic information for all five articles

2. put them in alphabetical order according to the last name of the first author
3. write the one-sentence descriptive summary, several informative sentences, and
evaluative sentences of each article

 
Rubric (i.e., how I will grade the final draft)
Below are the elements of the evaluation of the final draft: 
Title and bibliographic references
The bibliography has a title that allows the reader to know what the papers are about, and
why they belong together in this bibliography.
Entries are flawlessly consistent within chosen reference style (APA, 7 th Ed), using
appropriate ordering, punctuation, and font for authors’ names; publication dates,
capitalization in article, book, journal, and conference titles; page numbers, website
addresses; and other information. Sources are listed in alphabetical order according to the
first author’s family name.
Descriptive summary 
A one-sentence descriptive summary that introduces the source begins each entry. It refers to
the author(s) by family name, and not as “the author(s)” 
Informative summary 
Informative sentences summarize the main issues discussed in the article. They are clearly
written so that they can be understood with a single reading. At least two summary reminder
phrases are used. The summary sentences should not your own opinion.
Evaluation 
Evaluative sentences show your opinion of this source, and are clearly separated from
author’s or authors’ ideas. These sentences are in a different paragraph from the descriptive
and informative sentences. Do not say “I believe”, “in my opinion,” etc. Use academic
expressions to make your point/argument. 
Grammar/usage
The grammar in the summaries is flawless, and any errors could be seen as stylistic
differences. Points will be subtracted for awkward phrases (e.g. direct translations of native
language) or incorrect usage, or errors in morphology or syntax (e.g. subject-verb agreement,
complementation, verb tense or verb form). Errors that impede understanding will lose more
points than errors that are noticeable but do not impede understanding.