Using an annotated bibliography as a sense-making tool

Your annotated bibliography is both an extension of your memory and of the part of your mind that mulls things over while you are doing other things. It serves as a road map for collaborators who want to work with you, and will be invaluable when you are ready to write those papers and/or publish. So put entries for everything in it - conference pages, websites, magazine articles, books, newspaper articles, standards, talks, code, etc., not just journal articles.

Writing public and private annotations

Over the years, I've found that distinguishing between several types of annotations really helps me, my lab students, and the students in my research methods class: remember where they found what; distinguish their original ideas from those of the authors; develop those original ideas; learn to distinguish between quality of writing and quality of research; and place research in context, to name a few benefits. When DigestingaPaper? , start with three types of annotations:

• Distillation - Start by describing the source in your own words, a sentence or two. Move on to extracting and summarizing the highlights/most interesting/most relevant/etc., aspects of the work to you and your interests This annotated bib is yours, after all. Therein lies the difference between the abstract and the distillation. The abstract is from the author(s)' point of view, while the distillation is from yours. Distillations work best as public annotations, so take the time to write something coherent, that others would find useful. (see also Catherine Marshall's research on public and private annotations)
• Musings - Your response(s) to the source. Could include your opinion of it. Was it useful? Readable? In addition, anything that wanders through your head that you think was triggered by reading the source goes here, even if it seems totally irrelevant. Do not try to write in complete sentences! Just jot down notes.
• Quotes - any quotes that 'strike your fancy', that stick in your mind. Don't worry about whether anyone else will understand why you grabbed that quote, just grab it.

As you go along, you may find that you end up further sub-dividing these three types by area of interest (some researchers seem to like that, others not) or tagging individual annotations by research interest, or using one of a number of refinements of that nature. No one particular technique has yet to emerge.

Keeping the bibliographic data

• IEEE Citation format.
• database
• keywords
• search terms/criteria

[see also UnderstandingANewField]