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Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography: Purpose, Structure & Writing Tips
Literature reviews and annotated bibliographies are essential components of academic research. They help researchers understand the existing body of work, identify gaps in knowledge, and frame precise research questions. While related, these tools serve different purposes and follow different structures. This guide outlines their characteristics, differences, and best practices for writing both.
Sample 1: A Paragraph in a literature review
Literature reviews and annotated bibliographies
Literature reviews are integral parts of research proposals, research papers, and theses. A good review includes the existing knowledge and the knowledge gaps related to the research work. Students should master the art of reviewing the literature critically and objectively.
The primary review helps demonstrate that the author has surveyed the literature of a particular subject extensively and critically evaluated its quality by classifying and summarizing the findings in comparison with existing literature reviews and previous research works.
Before embarking on a research project, a critical literature review helps understand the subject area better. The author finds out whether the research problem has been covered by someone before; and if so, to what extent it was successful. Part of the subject area may have been investigated and several unexplored areas may exist. In doing so, the review brings clarity and focus to the research problem, improves methodology, and broadens the knowledge base.
Purpose and Function
Literature Review
- Part of a larger research report or thesis.
- Offers context for the current study by summarizing and evaluating previous research and existing knowledge.
- Highlights major findings, themes, and methodologies relevant to the current research question.
- Identifies gaps, inconsistencies, or areas for future research.
- Helps frame the research question and improve methodology.
Annotated Bibliography
- A preparatory tool often used during early stages of research.
- Consists of a list of citations followed by annotations.
- Helps the researcher understand and evaluate each source individually.
- Commonly used to:
- Learn library research techniques
- Assess the quality and relevance of sources
- Practice formatting citations
Comparison Between Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography
Annotated bibliographies show awareness of general literature relevant to the researcher’s area of interest. The literature review synthesizes ideas within existing literature. The synthesis assesses and critiques existing perspectives and proposes new ideas. Original research questions emerge from these ideas. The differences between a literature review and an annotated bibliography are as follows:
Annotated Bibliography
Literature Review
Bulleted list, usually in alphabetical order by author.
Prose form, integrated into a larger work or stand-alone essay.
Aims to be comprehensive.
Selective, focuses on thematically relevant works.
Each entry summarized individually.
References grouped and synthesized by themes or perspectives.
Describes and occasionally evaluates sources.
Synthesizes sources to support, challenge, or contextualize the research design.
Does not compare references or synthesize themes.
Explains varied schools of thought or trace historical development of a concept, idea, or theory.
Prepared for researcher’s use.
Written for an external audience (instructors, journal readers, etc.).
Purpose of preparing annotations
An annotated bibliography is made up of a series of entries, each for a single selected work.
Entries are usually arranged alphabetically by the last name of the author (or first author in multi-author works).
For longer annotated bibliographies (over 25–30 entries):
- Entries are often grouped by relevant subtopics.
- Within each subtopic, entries are arranged alphabetically by author’s last name.
Each entry includes three parts:
- A full bibliographic citation in the required style (e.g., APA, Harvard, or IEEE).
- A description of the work’s content.
- An evaluation of the work’s significance.
Annotations may be:
- Purely descriptive, summarizing the content in a paragraph.
- Evaluative, explaining the significance of the item in covering the topic.
Sample 2: Annotated bibliography entry
Descriptive Annotations
- Help understand and remember the content of individual sources.
- Helps see connections among different works on your topic.
Evaluative Annotations
- Help you assess the relative importance of existing work in your area of interest.
- Help you identify strengths and weaknesses in existing research, which you can:
- Build on in your own work.
- Avoid repeating in your own research.
Writing Descriptive Annotations
- A descriptive annotation is a brief abstract of the book, article, or other source.
- Two ways to write a descriptive annotation: author’s or own abstract.
a. Using the Author’s Published Abstract
- Relies on the author’s abstract (in full or part) if it exists.
- Placed in quotation marks.
- Include page numbers or URL.
- Example: Quoting the abstract from Giammona (2004) in Technical Communication.
- Advantage: Saves time.
- Limitation: Some published abstracts may be poorly written or lack key details.
b. Writing Own Abstract
A good abstract includes:
- Research question(s)
- Research method
- Research results
- Analysis of results
- Conclusions
Advantages:
Encouraged because it deepens your understanding of the source.
May be clearer or more complete than the published abstract.
Helps prepare for writing the evaluative part of the annotation.
Content Guidelines
- Include only essential information.
- Important to note statistically significant results.
- Do not include unnecessary details (e.g., names of statistical tests used).
- Typically 100 to 250 words, depending on the length and complexity of the source.
Writing Evaluative Annotations
Evaluative annotations help explicitly gauge the relative importance of the existing work in a specific area of interest.
Creating evaluative annotations also helps identify the strengths and weaknesses of the existing work, and potentially draw on the strengths and avoid the
weaknesses in the research.
Concurrent Reading
This involves reading multiple related sources in a short time frame. This makes it easier to compare works than for someone who read them over years.
Chronological Reading
This helps identify original research vs. derivative works, which earlier sources are frequently cited by others, and citations that help indicate foundational studies and methodological influences.
Primary vs. Secondary Research
Identify which works are based on primary research (original data/study), and secondary research (synthesis of existing studies).
Evaluate the significance of primary research results and effectiveness of secondary research in synthesizing existing work.
Guidelines for Evaluative Annotations
- Make comparisons where appropriate to other works.
- Revise annotations after completing all reading and drafting both descriptive and evaluative parts for all sources.
Structure
- Separate descriptive and evaluative parts:
- One paragraph for each
- Description comes first, evaluation second
Length:
Typically 50 to 100 words, depending on the work’s length and importance
Preparing the Literature Review
Identify purpose and audience
- Define the purpose and audience before writing the literature review.
- The audience could be:
- Journal readers
- Instructors and classmates
- Analyze the audience:
- How familiar are they with the topic?
- What is their interest level?
- How will they use the information?
- Purpose in a primary research report:
- Give an overview of relevant prior work.
- Focus on studies directly related to research questions, methods, or topics.
writing the literature review
- In writing the literature review:
- Summarizes key findings, not every consulted source.
- the coverage of a source should be shorter and more selective than an annotated bibliography.
- Typically includes only the most important and relevant works.
Organization of Literature Review
- No fixed structure; organize based on relevance and logic.
- Consider the following:
- Which audiences or populations were studied?
- What methods or techniques were used?
- What are the key findings? Are they consistent or conflicting?
- What conclusions were drawn?
- Were there unexpected or inconclusive results?
- What gaps or future research needs remain?
Conclusion
Annotated bibliographies and literature reviews are vital tools in scholarly research. While an annotated bibliography helps catalog and briefly assess sources, a literature review synthesizes these insights to support or challenge the framework of a research study. Mastering both strengthens your ability to conduct rigorous, credible research.
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Jared L.
Jared is a writer at ScholarlyWritings.com and has helped thousands of students learn how to craft original essays. He is an expert in different essay formats. He spends most of his time writing essays and research papers.
Sources
Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). Annotated bibliographies. Purdue University. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/annotated_bibliographies/
University of North Texas at Dallas. (n.d.). Annotated bibliography vs. literature review. https://www.untdallas.edu/learning/writing/academic-writing/annotated-bibliography-vs-literature-review.php