A Quick Guide to Writing Annotated Bibliography for Psychology Assignments

21 May 2022 3614

When writing a psychology assignment, there are many things that you need to take care of. From outlining the assignment properly to maintaining the flow of information in each section, you need to ensure that everything is on point. Also, you need to write the best introduction and conclusion and present impressive arguments in your psychology assignment. Moreover, our psychology assignment help experts suggest that you shouldn’t forget the annotated bibliography. But before you begin writing it, you need to know about annotated bibliography and how it is written with perfection.

What Is an Annotated Bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is an organized list of references used in any written work. However, it is quite different from a usual bibliography as each reference in it is followed by a paragraph length annotation (a brief summary of a book, article, website or any other type of publication). It is generally 100–200 words in length. Depending on the assignment you are working on, an annotated bibliography may have different purposes, such as:

It provides a literature review on a specific subject.
It gives examples of prominent sources of information available on a topic.
It helps to prepare a thesis on the subject.
It describes elements that other researchers may find interesting about the topic.
It demonstrates the research performed on a particular subject.

Since you are working on a psychology assignment, your purpose behind writing an annotated bibliography is to inform the readers of the quality, accuracy, and relevance of the sources cited. There are two major types of annotated bibliographies. Each one of them has been explained by psychology assignment help experts in detail below.

Types of Annotated Bibliographies

1.Descriptive or Informative: A descriptive or informative annotated bibliography describes a source just the way abstract does. It tells why the source is useful for researching a specific topic or question, and also highlights its distinctive features. Moreover, it describes the main arguments and conclusions of the author without analyzing what he says or concludes.

For Example:

Breeding evil. (2005, August 6). Economist, 376(8438), 9. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com

This article from the Economist depicts the controversy encompassing video games and the impact they have on individuals who use them. The author brings up that distrust of new media have gone back to the time of the ancient Greeks, so this discussion encompassing video games is just the same old thing new. The article likewise brings up that most critics of gaming are individuals more than 40 and it is an issue of ages not understanding each other, instead of the games themselves. As the youth of today become more established, the controversy will cease to exist, as indicated by the author. The author of this article focuses on the age factor over savagery as the genuine purpose behind restriction to video games and emphasizes the good gaming has done in many areas of human life. This article is distinctive in investigating the debate encompassing video games from a generational point of view and is composed for a general audience.

*Note: This example uses APA style (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association) to cite magazine article online.

2.Analytical or Critical: An analytical or critical annotated bibliography not only summarizes the material but evaluates what is being said. It analyzes the strong and weak points of what is presented, and also describes the applicability of the conclusions presented by the author to the research being conducted. For most of the annotated bibliographies in your psychology assignments, you will be presenting analytical or critical annotations.

For Example:

Breeding evil. (2005, August 6). Economist, 376(8438), 9. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com

This publication from the Economist depicts the controversy encompassing video games and the impact they have on individuals who use them. The article calls attention to that most critics of gaming are individuals more than 40 and it is an issue of age not of the games themselves. While the author briefly mentions studies done around the issue of gaming and violence, he doesn't go into enough depth for the reader to really know the scope of studies that have really been done here, other than to take his word that the research is inadmissible. The author of this article focuses on the age factor over viciousness as the genuine explanation behind restriction to video games and emphasizes the good gaming has done in many areas of human life. This article is a good resource for those needing to start to investigate the discussion encompassing video games, anyway for anybody doing genuine research, one ought to really look at some of the research studies that have been done around there instead of taking the author's statement that opposition to video games is essentially because of an issue of generational gap.

*Note: This example uses APA style (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association) to cite magazine article online.

By now you must have understood what an annotated bibliography is and how it is written for assignments. So, it’s time to learn how to write an annotated bibliography for psychology assignments. Let’s get started.

How to Write an Annotated Bibliography for Psychology Assignments?

Pick the Best Sources: The first step to writing an annotated bibliography for a psychology assignment is selecting the best sources by doing the research the way you do for any other assignment. You need to trawl through various sources, such as books, magazines, websites, journals, etc. to find relevant material for your assignment.

Review & Select Useful Sources: After you have all the sources, now it’s time to review them and pick the ones that actually provide you different and unique perspectives on the topic of your psychology assignment. You can opt for the article abstracts since they are considered the most useful for the psychology assignments.

Write Citations & Annotations: When preparing an annotated bibliography, you should first mention the citation and then the annotation. Psychology assignments are generally cited in APA style, but you must consult your professor before starting to write the annotated bibliography.

By keeping all these things in mind, you will surely be able to prepare a highly precise annotated bibliography for your psychology assignment. However, if at any point you struggle with it, then you can count on our writing experts for the assignment help. They will work with all their might to compose a perfect annotated bibliography for your psychology assignment!