NHM 511: Advanced Nutrition

A good annotated bibliography:

• encourages you to think critically about the content of the works you are using, their place within a field of study, and their relation to your own research and ideas.
• proves you have read and understand your sources.
• establishes your work as a valid source and you as a competent researcher.
• situates your study and topic in a continuing professional conversation.
• provides a way for others to decide whether a source will be helpful to their research if they read it.
• could help interested researchers determine whether they are interested in a topic by providing background information and an idea of the kind of work going on in a field.

Content from UNC Chapel Hill Writing Center. 

What is an Annotated Bibliography?

Unlike an abstract (which is a simple summary), an annotation is descriptive and critical; it exposes the author's opinion of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the cited source. There are two benefits of an annotated bibliography. The first is that it compels you, the researcher, to better understand your own research. In order to create the annotations, you have to thoroughly review your sources and be able to explain and form conclusions about them based upon your overall knowledge of the topic. Secondly, your annotations will help readers decide if a source will be useful to them in their own research. (Content from CMU Libraries)

Use these examples from UNC Libraries as your guide to creating your annotated bibliography:

MLA Example

APA Example

• APA Style and Grammar Guide

• AMA Style Guide

• OWL @Purdue APA Examples

• Zotero Citation Manager