What is an annotated bibliography?
Not sure how to track the papers you've read? Want an efficient way to organize your research?
Answer
An annotated bibliography is a great way to organize your research. When you find articles you think you'll use for a paper, make sure to copy its citation from the database and paste it into a word document on your laptop. Do this for every paper you think you'll use. It's like your draft bibliography (or references or works cited page). Then, when you go read the paper, take notes (annotate) about it underneath its citation. Write down what their hypothesis was, what kind of data they used, what were the results, what did they conclude, did you believe their conclusions, did it remind you of another paper you read. This saves you from having to reread papers and from plagiarizing by getting your thoughts on paper immediately. Feel free to download this file that can walk you through the process.