Evaluating your sources is a crucial step of the research process. You need to evaluate carefully each source to determine its appropriateness and quality.
Check our Evaluating Sources Checklist for criteria used to judge information sources and our Scholarly vs. Popular Resources page to distinguish between scholarly and popular publications.
It is particularly important to evaluation information that you find on the Web. Because there are no rules and anyone can post a page on the Web, you will have to determine whether the web site is of value. Go to Evaluating Web Resources for specific criteria used to analyze websites.
Check our Distinguishing Scholarly from Non Scholarly Periodicals page in order to evaluate periodicals by looking at their content, purpose, and intended audience.
Use citation software to organize your own library of citations, incorporate quotes into your assignments, and compile reference lists (bibliographies) for your assignments.
Please see our Citing and Citation Managers guide for more information.
How to Write an Annotated Bibliography (Concordia University)
How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography: The Annotated Bibliography (Cornell University)
Writing an Annotated Bibliography (U of Toronto)
What is an Annotated Bibliography? (SMU)
Annotated Bibliographies (UCLA)
Chicago is the preferred style of documentation for the History department. Check out these sites for information on citing sources:
Chicago Manual of Style Online
There are also print copies in the Library to sign out or consult.
Chicago Manual of Style (OWL at Purdue University)