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ENG 250: Children's Literature (Online): Annotated Bibliography

This guide features resources for the annotated bibliography & research paper in English 250 online. For help, email online-library@nvcc.edu

What is an Annotated Bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a bibliography with notes (called an annotation) below each citation. In the annotation, you summarize the source in your own words and evaluate how useful it is for your project.

Elements of an annotation

  1. MLA citation of source: Just like the citation you would use in the bibliography at the end of a paper.
  2. Summary of source: In your own words, state the topic, argument, main idea, and/or important examples used in the source. Important: this really must be your own words!
  3. Evaluation of source: Here you're evaluating both the quality of the source and how this source is relevant to your project. Here are some questions to help you:
    1. ​Who is the author and who is the publisher? How does this information impact your view of the source?
    2. What is the purpose of this source? (is it scholarly research, political commentary, guidance for parents?)
    3. Why did you decide to include this particular source in your annotated bibliography? How will the source be useful for your research report?
    4. How does this source relate to other sources in your research? Does it contradict any of your other sources? Does it build on or support any others?

Sample annotations

Example Annotated Bibliography Entry

Context: The annotation below is in preparation for a paper on representations of gender roles in LGBTQ children's literature.

View the article here. Note that the annotation does not just repeat or paraphrase the abstract!

Crawley, Stephen A. "Be Who You are: Exploring Representations of Transgender Children in Picturebooks." Journal of Children's Literature, vol. 43, no. 2, 2017, pp. 28-41. ProQuest, http://eznvcc.vccs.edu:2048/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1964430375?accountid=12902.


This peer-reviewed journal article offers a critical content analysis of nine children's picture books with transgender children as protagonists. The critical lens in this content analysis is queer theory. Crawley, a PhD candidate at the time of publication and now faculty at Oklahoma State, finds a troubling homogeneity among representations of trans children. Most of the nine protagonists are white, middle class, identify as female, and have supportive parents. For my research, the section on gender essentialism (pages 32-33) in these nine books will be most useful. Crawley observes that gender essentialism prevails not only in representations of parental roles, but also in representations of the trans children themselves. That is, among those identifying as female, most conform to gender-essentialist notions of girls' behavior (playing with dolls, favoring the color pink, etc.). Even in a set of realistic picture books attentive to gender and sexual minorities, young nonbinary and genderqueer children go unrepresented. Young children reading these books, too, will see little to challenge a binary understanding of gender. Crawley's findings are, however, specific to realistic fiction and autobiography--they exclude fantasy and science fiction. It would be interesting to find a similar study on those other genres.

 

Adapted and used with permission from The Research & Learning Services Department, in Olin and Uris Libraries, part of the Cornell University Library, "How to prepare an annotated bibliography," http://guides.library.cornell.edu/content.php?pid=448160

Olin Library Reference
Research & Learning Services
Cornell University Library
Ithaca, NY, USA

What's an Annotated Bib? (Video)

Created by the Brock Library at Brock University, Ontario, Canada.