Notes on Annotated Bibliographies

The purpose of this this document is to give some pointers on creating an annotated bibliography. First, you should begin by browsing the some of the sources we have used inclass, visiting the library, and using the internet to identify some sources.

After reading a number of sources, compile a bibliography of books and journal articles that you might use to research your topic, format it in the MLA style.

This bibliography must include at least four sources, and at least one book and one scholarly (peer reviewed) article.

Each item in an annotated bibliography (for this class) has the following pieces.

  1. A bibliography record formatted in MLA style.
  2. A brief (2-3 sentence) description or synopsis of what the work is about.
  3. At least 1 (possibly many) quotations, that you might use in the paper you will be writing.
Here is an example entry I wrote about the Richard Smith's review of Jared Diamond's book Collapse. Your annotated bibliography will have many such entries.

Richard Smith. "Capitalism and Collapse: contradictions of Jared Diamond’s market meliorist strategy to save the humans." Capitalism Nature Socialism Journal. 16.4(December 2005): 19 - 36. Electronic Journal sources at http://www.cnsjournal.org/

A review of Jared Diamonds book Collapse. Basically agrees with most of Diamond's analysis of why societies suceed or fail, but disagrees strongly with Diamond's analysis of the lessons we should learn from this study. Argues that most societies can not choose certain paths because they were controlled by small autocratic groups beyond the control of most of societies members. That this state has much in common with our own world, where big money and corporations are in control, and if we are to avoid the fate of many of these past societies, we will need to exert more control over these entities.

"Diamond’s thesis is that societies such as the Easter Islanders, the Greenland Norse, the Anasazi of the American southwest, the Lowland Mayans and others collapsed largely because they exhausted the natural resources on which they depended and failed to realize the need to change, or, inexplicably, refused to change and instead pursued grim trajectories toward social and economic disintegration and collapse."

"Diamond has opened a fruitful approach to understanding the dynamics of eco-social collapse. Indeed, I think it’s the most important history lesson in his book. But the problem is that when he turns to our modern predicament, he completely forgets his own lesson."

"But we don’t live in a bottom-up democratic society. We live in a capitalist society in which ownership and control of the economy is largely in the hands of private corporations who pursue their own ends and don’t answer to society"


Some advice about formatting and annotating bibliographys can be found at the following web sites. The OWL project (and especially its page about annotated bibliographies), and the liunet website.

As a quide to formatting bibliographic references, I have included the following examples (from the OWL project page).

  1. Book:
    Okuda, Michael, and Denise Okuda. Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future. New York: Pocket, 1993.
  2. Journal Article:
    Wilcox, Rhonda V. "Shifting Roles and Synthetic Women in Star Trek: The Next Generation." Studies in Popular Culture 13.2 (1991): 53-65.
  3. Newspaper or Magazine Article:
    Di Rado, Alicia. "Trekking through College: Classes Explore Modern Society Using the World of Star Trek." Los Angeles Times 15 Mar. 1995: A3.
  4. Book Article or Chapter
    James, Nancy E. "Two Sides of Paradise: The Eden Myth According to Kirk and Spock." Spectrum of the Fantastic. Ed. Donald Palumbo. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988. 219-223.
  5. Encyclopedia Article:(well known reference books)
    Sturgeon, Theodore. "Science Fiction." The Encyclopedia Americana. International ed. 1995.
  6. Website:
    Lynch, Tim. "DSN Trials and Tribble-ations Review." Psi Phi: Bradley's Science Fiction Club. 1996. Bradley University. 8 Oct. 1997 .
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Thanks to Betsy Natter for ideas on this page.