Historical Trends

An annotated bibliography provides a brief overview of the research article on a topic. It is the full citation of the article or source followed by a commentary or explanation about the source/article. It is a short summary that can be critical as well as descriptive. It is generally 2 to 4 sentences and approximately 150 – 200 words and summarizes the main idea of the article/source. It is a paraphrased summary in your OWN WORDS and NOT directly quoted from the article.

For this assignment:
Students will find three articles that support the selected topic for the Powerpoint Assignment.
Please see the details and the rubric for this assignment.
The three articles will start the reference list for the Powerpoint.
Once the articles are selected, please follow the directions for writing an annotated bibliography.

Although there are several ways to describe the elements of the annotated bibliography, they are basically very similar. The annotated bibliography may do one or more of the following:

Summarize: Some annotations just summarize the article and answer these questions: What are the main arguments? What is the point of the article? What topic(s) are covered?

Assess: After summarizing an article, 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? Are there any important arguments or controversial statements made by the author? You can also include your opinion here.
For this assignment, the student will complete three annotated bibliographies following the examples below and the descriptions above. The Rubric on the next page will provide you with the criteria to complete the annotation and to receive the best grade.
To select the three articles to summarize, the student will first review the criteria and directions for the Powerpoint Assignment. The three articles that you summarize here for this assignment will be used in your powerpoint to support the topic that you are presenting. Therefore, you are building a reference list for the assignment. Your articles must be from Peer Reviewed journals. See “Peer Reviewed Journals and/or Articles”
Articles should be no more than 7 years old
Writing style: An annotated bibliography follows the general rules for all academic writing. Please review the sample annotated bibliography.