What is an annotated bibliography?
A bibliography is a list of sources (informational resources), and an annotation is a summary, assessment/evaluation, and reflection of those sources. Annotations enable readers to pay closer attention to the information presented and allow for more personalized connections to the source. Annotated bibliographies enable persons to see what the literature says, while also helping to make critical connections to the real world and to discover one’s own point of view on critical topics.
What do I need to conduct my annotated bibliography?
For this key assessment, you will create an annotated bibliography for five peer-reviewed articles that focus on various components of literacy. Do not simply complete your assignment based on the first articles you see; instead, find articles that you want to read and ones that discuss topics that are interesting and important to you, and/or topics that you want to know more about.
You will choose articles from professional, peer-reviewed, scholarly journals. (Examples of such include, but are not limited to: The Reading Teacher (ILA); Journal of Literacy Research (SAGE); Journal of Research in Reading (Wiley Online); Reading Research Quarterly (ILA); Early Childhood Research Quarterly (Elsevier); Journal of Learning Disabilities (SAGE), etc. These are merely suggestions, and the journals do not necessarily have to deal explicitly with reading/literacy, but the articles themselves must focus on specific components of literacy and must focus on any of the following:
- evidence-based components of language development
- evidence-based components of receptive literacies (reading, viewing, listening and thinking)
- evidence-based components of expressive literacies (thinking, writing, and speaking)
- research, policy, and practices related to language and literacy education
- literacy instruction to improve practices
- literacy intervention supports of striving readers
All articles chosen must have been published within the past five years; this means that you must find journals/articles that have been published between 2017-2022. As quickly as education changes, you do not want to conduct an annotated bibliography on outdated research, strategies, and ideas.
It is important to remember that many peer-reviewed publications are open-access journals and can be found online, and the Mercer University librarians can be wonderful supports for you as you work to find your five articles. You will be able to utilize the library search engines to find peer-reviewed journals.
What are the important parts of an annotated bibliography?
Depending on the purpose and the rationale, annotated bibliographies can look very different. The constructs and formatting can be varied, and you may have completed an annotated bibliography assignment for another undergraduate or graduate course that looked a bit different than these directions. However, for the purpose of this course and this assignment, it is important that your annotated bibliography follows these three parts:
- Title. At the top, you will write the title of the article and the names of the author(s).
- Annotation. This is the largest part of each annotated bibliography. The annotation will be divided up into sections. First, you will write a summary of the article. Then you assess the article. Finally, you will reflect/evaluate the article. The annotation section must also give evidence to Kucer’s dimensions of literacy. (Please see below for more information.)
- Citation. You must include the citation (reference page) for each article used at the end of each of the five bibliographies. You will use APA (7th edition). Failure to cite correctly will result in points being deducted.
Let’s go back to the “meat” of the assignment: the annotation. This will be divided into different sections. First, the summary will be a means of describing the article and its purpose. Next, the assessment section will be a place for you to assess the worth of the article in terms of your own teaching and learning and to evaluate whether the information will be used in your own life and classroom.
This will be written in multiple paragraphs. Each section should be no less than 10-14 sentences in length (approximately two paragraphs), and you might write about half a page to ¾ of a page), but no section should be more than one-two pages in length. (Note: Your five submissions will not necessarily be the exact same; for one article, your summary may be two paragraphs, your assessment/evaluation might be a page, and your reflection may be ¾ of a page, while for another article your summary may be a page, your assessment/evaluation may be half a page, and your reflection may be about two paragraphs.) As long as you show evidence of summarizing, assessing/evaluating, and reflecting, you do not need to write a substantial amount, as the goal is for you to effectively, yet succinctly, demonstrate your knowledge.
You cannot use direct quotations from the article. Instead, you must paraphrase, showing evidence that you have read the information and that you understand the information presented through each article. Do not simply summarize by copying direct quotes from the author(s); paraphrase the author’s/authors’ words into your own.
Here are some guiding questions, noting that this is simply to guide the thought process, noting that you do not need to answer all of these for each annotation:
Summary:
- What is/are the author(s) stating in the article?
- What is the purpose of the article?
- What are the main points in the article?
- What literacy-related topics are covered in the article?
- What is the conclusion of the article?
- What research was conducted?
- Why type of reseach was conducted?
- In thinking back at the purpose and topics covered in the article, does this article focus on cognitive, linguistic, sociocultural, and/or developmental dimensions of literacy?
- If you were explaining this article to a colleague or to a fellow graduate student, what information would you give them?
Assessment/Evaluation:
- Why did you choose this article to read?
- What did you hope to learn from this article when you selected it?
- What did you actually learn from this article? Did the article meet your expectations?
- Did you find this to be reliable information?
- Did you find the author(s) to be biased?
- Did you agree with the research methods presented in the article?
- Did you agree with the author’s/authors’ information? Did you disagree with the author’s/authors’ information?
- What stood out to you the most when reading this?
- How does this article compare with other sources (other articles) in your bibliography? Was this your favorite article to read (or one of your favorites), or was this your least favorite (or among your least favorites)? Explain your reasoning.
- If you were asked to give a peer-reviewed article to a colleague (i.e. member of your grade-level team) or to a fellow graduate student, would this be a source you would share? Explain. OR, if you were asked to conduct a professional learning workshop for your colleagues, would the information from this article be something you would want to cite/quote/share? Why/why not?
- From this article, did you learn more about cognitive, linguistic, sociocultural, and/or developmental dimensions of literacy? In what way(s)?
Reflection:
- In thinking of your teaching experience, the grade level you teach, your prior knowledge, and what you want to learn more about, was this a useful source for you?
- After reading the article, what new ideas will you take into your own classroom?
- How will the information learned help you as an educator and as an active researcher?
- Did you learn about new resources and new methods of instruction?
- Did you learn new vocabulary that can help you become a more successful educator?
- Do you now have a different mindset?
- Do you now have a greater awareness of the cognitive, linguistic, sociocultural, and/or developmental dimensions of literacy?
- Has your own viewpoint changed? Has the information provided changed how you think about a particular aspect of literacy?
In addition to submitting the annotated bibliography, you will also submit a PDF of all five articles that you read and utilized for this assignment.
