While pursuing a course in college, you must keep in mind that any of your well-written assignment will seem nothing if it does not contain a good annotated bibliography. You have to especially pay focus on writing a bibliography if you are a student of masters. You may get it as a part of your assignment or as a separate specific assignment as well. Hence before starting any assignment, you must have a clear idea about what bibliography and annotation are.
It is a misbelief of students that annotation is a summary of an article, book, or any publication. Instead, annotation is giving an idea to the reader whether they want to complete the work or not by providing enough information. When you organize a list of sources then it is called an annotated bibliography. Writing an annotated bibliography is not that easy as it may seem. Professionals from the assignment writing company have jotted down few steps that you can follow to write a good bibliography.
Top 5 Steps to Write an Annotated Bibliography for Master Student
Select The Sources
Find out the best sources for your research whenever you have to write any paper. The quality of the bibliography by the author or the student majorly depends on the source of their research work. Pre-defined boundaries should be made for your research if you are willing to improve the quality of the assignment. This selection will give you an idea of what you want to include and what you want to exclude.
Many questions will revolve in your mind to figure out the clear boundaries:
- For what problem you are investigating?
- What is the direction of your investigation that is for which questions you are finding answers to?
- What is the type of material that you are looking for for the content?
- Are you looking for primary historical sources or journal articles?
Examine The Relevance and Value of Your Sources
Once a finalized list is there in your hands for the sources that you will be using then an examination of the relevance of the source is the next logical step. It is very essential to determine the connection between the source and the assignment that you are going to write a bibliography for. All you have to do is to figure out the contribution of the course in your assignment.
For the best assessment try to question yourself:
- Is the source helpful for you to explore the new and creative understanding of the work?
- Why are you influenced by the usage of the source?
- How is the initial concept of the topic used by the source?
- Why is the source value for you, that is how will it help you in the assignment?
Evaluate The Background of The Author
As mentioned earlier the source of the information or the bibliography that you are writing plays a very important role in its quality. One of the ways to evaluate the usefulness of the source is to examine the credentials as well as the experience of the author.
Do not make a grave mistake of blindly trusting any source and ask yourself questions:
- Is the author good at his work?
- Does he hold expertise related to the issue of research?
- What is the school of thought of the author and their intellectual alignment?
Summarize The Argument or The Point of a Source
It is the requirement of the assignments that you provide a quick view of the topic while writing a bibliography. It is certain to identify the major methods and main conclusions of the investigation. Instead of listing the contents try to summarize the primary argument.
While wondering how to do all this try to find the answer to these questions and your problem will be solved:
- What key terms should occur in the research of the source?
- How is the division of the main section of the content been done?
- What are the primary questions of research and what are their claim?
Write The Bibliography
This marks the completion of all your steps. Now all you have to do is to write down the bibliography. Just you need to be careful while doing so. This is because there are specific and general types of annotated bibliography and you have to write according to the one guided by the professor. Follow a certain style and strictly adhere to it.