Blog Post 5

     The purpose of an annotated bibliography is to allow the reader some information on the sources so they can more easily understand them. Looking at a bibliography can be kind of confusing, especially if you don't know anything about the sources. For people who don't know much about the topic or how to read citations themselves, it gives a short summary so they can analyze and evaluate the source to see if it is necessary to their research or reading. That way the reader doesn't have to spend hours backtracking and wasting time and effort through what could be pages of sources in order to find one specific author or article. The source annotations are usually a paragraph long, and approximately 200 words. If someone is checking sources to grade or evaluate a paper, it makes it easier to see if the person used credible sources. It also prevents the grader or reader from having to go and read all of the sources in their entirety to understand what the author is talking about.
    I find it to be helpful, although a bit tedious. I find it difficult to understand bibliographies if I'm reading them straight out, and I'm not sure what to look for if I need to go back and check a source for specific information. The annotations help me organize all of the source's facts and info, and summarizing it makes it easier for me to understand. The fact that annotations have to be so concise forces me to reread the sources, sometimes more than once, and focus on what is really important. It's also very helpful to have the author's name and type of source at the beginning, because it's much clearer and easier to look up than picking apart the citation itself. Showing the summary also proves to the reader that I have read the source and understand it well enough to present a general idea of the article or book.. From that point further, the reader can assume that I am armed with enough information to provide a solid and credible argument. Researchers and students would find this style of bibliography very helpful, especially when looking for obscure or very detailed topics. I say this because when dealing with a complicated or specific topic, especially one in which there are multiple sources by the same author, it's very difficult to keep many sources separate. I'm not sure if the use of APA versus MLA makes a difference in the formatting of the annotation, but no matter which type of citation I use I suppose it's the same information and the same article.