An Overview

Why should I write an annotated bibliography?

•To learn about your topic: Writing an annotated bibliography is excellent preparation for a research project. Just collecting sources for a bibliography is useful, but when you have to write annotations for each source, you’re forced to read each source more carefully. You begin to read more critically instead of just collecting information. At the professional level, annotated bibliographies allow you to see what has been done in the literature and where your own research or scholarship can fit. To help you formulate a thesis: Every good research paper is an argument. The purpose of research is to state and support a thesis. So a very important part of research is developing a thesis that is debatable, interesting, and current. Writing an annotated bibliography can help you gain a good perspective on what is being said about your topic. By reading and responding to a variety of sources on a topic, you’ll start to see what the issues are, what people are arguing about, and you’ll then be able to develop your own point of view.

•To help other researchers: Extensive and scholarly annotated bibliographies are sometimes published. They provide a comprehensive overview of everything important that has been and is being said about that topic. You may not ever get your annotated bibliography published, but as a researcher, you might want to look for one that has been published about your topic.

What does an annotated bibliography do?

A good annotated bibliography:

• encourages you to think critically about the content of the works you are using, their place within a field of study, and their relation to your own research and ideas.

• proves you have read and understand your sources.

• establishes your work as a valid source and you as a competent researcher.

• situates your study and topic in a continuing professional conversation.

• provides a way for others to decide whether a source will be helpful to their research if they read it.

• could help interested researchers determine whether they are interested in a topic by providing background information and an idea of the kind of work going on in a field.

A bibliography is a list of sources (books, journals, websites, periodicals, etc.) one has used for researching a topic. Bibliographies are sometimes called “references” or “works cited” depending on the style format you are using. A bibliography usually just includes the bibliographic information (i.e., the author, title, publisher, etc.). An annotation is a summary and/or evaluation.

Therefore, an annotated bibliography includes a summary and/or evaluation of each of the sources. In this assignment, your annotations should do of the following:

• Summarize: Some annotations merely summarize the source. What are the main arguments? What is the point of this book or article? What topics are covered? If someone asked what this article/book is about, what would you say? The length of your annotations will determine how detailed your summary is.

• Assess: After summarizing a source, it may be helpful to evaluate it. Is it a useful source? How does it compare with other sources in your bibliography? Is the information reliable? Is this source biased or objective? What is the goal of this source? How is this source useful to the paper that I am creating?

• Reflect: Once you’ve summarized and assessed a source, you need to ask how it fits into your research. Was this source helpful to you? How does it help you shape your argument? How can you use this source in your research project? Has it changed how you think about your topic?

• Relevance: For the annotated Bibliography , you are not being asked to include ALL the articles you will use in your final paper. Rather, you asked to select KEY literature that is central and essential to your position, literature review or theoretical paper. 

This assignment is listed on the syllabus as “Final research paper” and is worth 20% of your grade. Your final paper will be an annotated bibliography, specifically focusing on implementing Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) in health care industry. Make sure that all your resources relate to this theme. (Remember this annotated bibliography must be build on your concept map and paper). 

You paper must be in correct APA format, use correct grammar, and will need to include at least seven (7) resources, ALL of which must:
1) Be current. Published within the last few years.
2) Be peer-reviewed. That means the paper must have undergone a formal peer review before being published in a journal or presented at a conference. You must ensure that your resources have undergone rigorous reviews. In most cases, you can find out the review process for a conference or journal by visiting the appropriate web site. Do not simply assume that a resource is peer reviewed – check it out.