ACAD 1601 WI002: Academic Writing: January - April 2017
Home Information Schedule Evaluation Assignments Contact Links

Annotated bibliography

This assignment is due on March 1. It must be submitted through SafeAssign as well as in paper.

You must produce an annotated bibliography containing two entries. Choose sources that will help you write your next assignment: the academic essay assignment.

In preparation for your academic essay, you must research two resources that you will ideally use for your academic essay assignment. One source must be a peer-reviewed, academic source that you will probably use and respond to in your essay. This is usually an essay from an academic journal, though it could be a chapter from an academic book or a whole academic book. Your second source can be anything that is authoritative and appropriate for an academic essay. Examples of valid material to use are appropriate reference resources, documents produced by government agencies, and well-respected news media sources. Wikipedia, unauthored Web pages, and popular media items (in print and/or digital) are examples of material to avoid for this assignment.

For this assignment, you need to write two short paragraphs for each of these two sources. The first paragraph is a brief summary (or abstract) of the source: it should include an account of what the source is about and what its main argument is (if it is an academic source) and its main purpose is (if it is a non-academic source). This paragraph should be paraphrase only: use only your own words unless quoting specific terminology. The second paragraph is a brief account of how you might be using the source in your academic essay: you may here need to identify secondary arguments from the source. Indicate whether you will be, for example, applying what is said to your argument, or demonstrating that the argument is in opposition to or problematic with what your essay will be arguing, or using the argument of one source to show conflicts with another source. Note that for at least your academic source, it is not sufficient to say that you will be using the data / facts / information / background provided by the essay: you need to indicate how you will be interacting with the source’s argument(s).

For this assignment, you may not use:

Penalty: 30 points if one of the entries is not of an academic, peer-reviewed source.
Penalty: up to 20 points for missing, inaccurate, or poorly formatted bibliographic information.

You can consult the Purdue Online Writing Lab and our library’s “How do I write an annotated bibliography?” for information about preparing annotated bibliographies (or you can remember what was said in class).

As always, identify quotations accurately. There is no need to use any other source than the two you are annotating. Format your bibliography according to MLA, APA, or Chicago rules.

As always, use double-space lineation, one-inch margins, and the Times New Roman font, 12-point in size.


How to find an academic, peer-reviewed article

An academic, peer-reviewed article is both academic and peer-reviewed. It is an academic essay if it represents original research: a new contribution to a field of knowledge. It is peer-reviewed if it has been evaluated by other experts in the field and has been approved by them and by an editor before it is published.

  1. Use a standard academic search tool.
    • Go to the university’s E-Resources to find an appropriate database of academic articles.
  2. The search tool can probably tell you whether or not the journal is peer-reviewed.
    • Hopefully, the database will identify whether or not the article comes from an academic, peer-reviewed journal.
    • Just because the essay is published in an academic, peer-reviewed journal does not necessarily mean that the essay itself is an academic, peer-reviewed essay.
    • Some databases will tell you that the essay is an academic essay, but you must be suspicious of this.
  3. Confirm that the journal is peer-reviewed.
    • Check the Serials Directory database for a statement that the journal is peer-reviewed.
    • Also, check the web site for the journal or a (physical) copy of an issue of the journal.
      • Check the “Mission Statement” or “Scope” statement or “For Authors” or “Advice for Authors” or whatever section you need to find a statement that the articles are peer-reviewed. If there is no such statement, you will probably have to reject the article.
      • If you are lucky, the digital database that contains the essay will reproduce the title pages, the front material, the publication statement, the table of contents, etc. of the issue.
  4. Confirm that the article is indeed an original research paper.
    • Reject editorials, perspective essays, letters from the field, book reviews, etc. As a general rule, these are neither academic nor peer-reviewed, though they may be written by academics and published in an academic, peer-reviewed journal.
    • Check the table of contents for the issue in which the article appears. Journals often have a section titled “Original Papers,” “Papers,” “Original Research,” or something like this.
  5. If you cannot find a clear statement of an argument or of original research results in the first paragraph or two of the article, you will probably have to reject the article.


Marc R. Plamondon, Ph.D. Department of English Studies Nipissing University