So you need to do an annotated bibliography. This is one of those things that every student has to do at some point. If you end up in a job heavy on research, you may use these all the time. For now though, you luckily have people to help you figure out how to put an annotated bibliography together.
The Cornell University Library has defined an annotated bibliography as:
“a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a brief (usually about 150 words) descriptive and evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited.” Their annotated bibliography LibGuide may provide you with additional information, if you're inclined to check it out.
In English, this means you are creating a paragraph that others may read to get a general idea of what your sources are about. The hardest part is being concise with your information. Annotations take practice but once you get the hang of it, they are easy.
Purdue Owl also has a section explaining Annotated Bibliographies, why you'd use them, samples and examples that you may find useful.
Here are steps to follow for your annotated bib to make your life a bit easier:
A: Talk about the author. (1 sentence)
Is this a professor? Maybe this is a professional in the field? Or is this person a hobbyist? Tell the audience about the author in the first part of the annotation.
B: Explain what the article is about. (1-3 sentences)
Tell the audience what is in the article. This is the most difficult part of the annotation because it requires you to be very succinct. Don’t rewrite the article; just write the base facts and important notes about the article here.
C: Explain how this article illuminates your bibliography topic. (1-2 sentences)
What about this article makes it relevant to your topic? Why did you select it? What pertinent bit of information makes this article stand out among the others? This should be more specific than what you wrote in section B.
D: Compare or contrast this work with another you have cited. (1-2 sentences)
How does this specific article relate to another article in your annotated bibliography? Do they agree or not? Why not? What makes them unique?
Bibliographic Management Tools help researchers organize and manage their research. They may be able to help you format papers and create footnotes and bibliographies.
There are also many citation building tools available on the web. These tools can be useful but you should always check your citations against the appropriate style guide to be sure the all the information is included and formatted correctly for that style.