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How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography: The Annotated Bibliography

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Explanation, Process, Directions, and Examples

What is an annotated bibliography.

An annotated bibliography is 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.

Annotations vs. Abstracts

Abstracts are the purely descriptive summaries often found at the beginning of scholarly journal articles or in periodical indexes. Annotations are descriptive and critical; they may describe the author's point of view, authority, or clarity and appropriateness of expression.

The Process

Creating an annotated bibliography calls for the application of a variety of intellectual skills: concise exposition, succinct analysis, and informed library research.

First, locate and record citations to books, periodicals, and documents that may contain useful information and ideas on your topic. Briefly examine and review the actual items. Then choose those works that provide a variety of perspectives on your topic.

Cite the book, article, or document using the appropriate style.

Write a concise annotation that summarizes the central theme and scope of the book or article. Include one or more sentences that (a) evaluate the authority or background of the author, (b) comment on the intended audience, (c) compare or contrast this work with another you have cited, or (d) explain how this work illuminates your bibliography topic.

Critically Appraising the Book, Article, or Document

For guidance in critically appraising and analyzing the sources for your bibliography, see How to Critically Analyze Information Sources . For information on the author's background and views, ask at the reference desk for help finding appropriate biographical reference materials and book review sources.

Choosing the Correct Citation Style

Check with your instructor to find out which style is preferred for your class. Online citation guides for both the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the American Psychological Association (APA) styles are linked from the Library's Citation Management page .

Sample Annotated Bibliography Entries

The following example uses APA style ( Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , 7th edition, 2019) for the journal citation:

Waite, L., Goldschneider, F., & Witsberger, C. (1986). Nonfamily living and the erosion of traditional family orientations among young adults. American Sociological Review, 51 (4), 541-554. The authors, researchers at the Rand Corporation and Brown University, use data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women and Young Men to test their hypothesis that nonfamily living by young adults alters their attitudes, values, plans, and expectations, moving them away from their belief in traditional sex roles. They find their hypothesis strongly supported in young females, while the effects were fewer in studies of young males. Increasing the time away from parents before marrying increased individualism, self-sufficiency, and changes in attitudes about families. In contrast, an earlier study by Williams cited below shows no significant gender differences in sex role attitudes as a result of nonfamily living.

This example uses MLA style ( MLA Handbook , 9th edition, 2021) for the journal citation. For additional annotation guidance from MLA, see 5.132: Annotated Bibliographies .

Waite, Linda J., et al. "Nonfamily Living and the Erosion of Traditional Family Orientations Among Young Adults." American Sociological Review, vol. 51, no. 4, 1986, pp. 541-554. The authors, researchers at the Rand Corporation and Brown University, use data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women and Young Men to test their hypothesis that nonfamily living by young adults alters their attitudes, values, plans, and expectations, moving them away from their belief in traditional sex roles. They find their hypothesis strongly supported in young females, while the effects were fewer in studies of young males. Increasing the time away from parents before marrying increased individualism, self-sufficiency, and changes in attitudes about families. In contrast, an earlier study by Williams cited below shows no significant gender differences in sex role attitudes as a result of nonfamily living.

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• Last Updated: Sep 29, 2022 11:09 AM
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How to Write an Annotated Bibliography - APA Style (7th Edition)

What is an annotation, how is an annotation different from an abstract, what is an annotated bibliography, types of annotated bibliographies, descriptive or informative, analytical or critical, to get started.

An annotation is more than just a brief summary of an article, book, website, or other type of publication. An annotation should give enough information to make a reader decide whether to read the complete work. In other words, if the reader were exploring the same topic as you, is this material useful and if so, why?

While an abstract also summarizes an article, book, website, or other type of publication, it is purely descriptive. Although annotations can be descriptive, they also include distinctive features about an item. Annotations can be evaluative and critical as we will see when we look at the two major types of annotations.

An annotated bibliography is an organized list of sources (like a reference list). It differs from a straightforward bibliography in that each reference is followed by a paragraph length annotation, usually 100–200 words in length.

Depending on the assignment, an annotated bibliography might have different purposes:

• Provide a literature review on a particular subject
• Help to formulate a thesis on a subject
• Demonstrate the research you have performed on a particular subject
• Provide examples of major sources of information available on a topic
• Describe items that other researchers may find of interest on a topic

There are two major types of annotated bibliographies:

A descriptive or informative annotated bibliography describes or summarizes a source as does an abstract; it describes why the source is useful for researching a particular topic or question and its distinctive features. In addition, it describes the author's main arguments and conclusions without evaluating what the author says or concludes.

For example:

McKinnon, A. (2019). Lessons learned in year one of business.  Journal of Legal Nurse Consulting ,  30 (4), 26–28. This article describes some of the difficulties many nurses experience when transitioning from nursing to a legal nurse consulting business. Pointing out issues of work-life balance, as well as the differences of working for someone else versus working for yourself, the author offers their personal experience as a learning tool. The process of becoming an entrepreneur is not often discussed in relation to nursing, and rarely delves into only the first year of starting a new business. Time management, maintaining an existing job, decision-making, and knowing yourself in order to market yourself are discussed with some detail. The author goes on to describe how important both the nursing professional community will be to a new business, and the importance of mentorship as both the mentee and mentor in individual success that can be found through professional connections. The article’s focus on practical advice for nurses seeking to start their own business does not detract from the advice about universal struggles of entrepreneurship makes this an article of interest to a wide-ranging audience.

An analytical or critical annotation not only summarizes the material, it analyzes what is being said. It examines the strengths and weaknesses of what is presented as well as describing the applicability of the author's conclusions to the research being conducted.

Analytical or critical annotations will most likely be required when writing for a college-level course.

McKinnon, A. (2019). Lessons learned in year one of business.  Journal of Legal Nurse Consulting ,  30 (4), 26–28. This article describes some of the difficulty many nurses experience when transitioning from nursing to a nurse consulting business. While the article focuses on issues of work-life balance, the differences of working for someone else versus working for yourself, marketing, and other business issues the author’s offer of only their personal experience is brief with few or no alternative solutions provided. There is no mention throughout the article of making use of other research about starting a new business and being successful. While relying on the anecdotal advice for their list of issues, the author does reference other business resources such as the Small Business Administration to help with business planning and professional organizations that can help with mentorships. The article is a good resource for those wanting to start their own legal nurse consulting business, a good first advice article even. However, entrepreneurs should also use more business research studies focused on starting a new business, with strategies against known or expected pitfalls and issues new businesses face, and for help on topics the author did not touch in this abbreviated list of lessons learned.

Now you are ready to begin writing your own annotated bibliography.

• Choose your sources - Before writing your annotated bibliography, you must choose your sources. This involves doing research much like for any other project. Locate records to materials that may apply to your topic.
• Review the items - Then review the actual items and choose those that provide a wide variety of perspectives on your topic. Article abstracts are helpful in this process.
• The purpose of the work
• A summary of its content
• Information about the author(s)
• For what type of audience the work is written
• Its relevance to the topic
• Any special or unique features about the material
• Research methodology
• The strengths, weaknesses or biases in the material

Annotated bibliographies may be arranged alphabetically or chronologically, check with your instructor to see what he or she prefers.

Please see the  APA Examples page  for more information on citing in APA style.

• Last Updated: Aug 8, 2023 11:27 AM
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How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography

• Critical Appraisal & Analysis

Sample Annotations

Attributions.

• Citation Styles

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SAMPLE DESCRIPTIVE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTRY FOR A JOURNAL ARTICLE

The following example uses the APA format for the journal citation.

Waite, L. J., Goldschneider, F. K., & Witsberger, C. (1986). Nonfamily living and the erosion of traditional family orientations among young adults. American Sociological Review, 51 (4), 541-554.

This example uses the MLA format for the journal citation. NOTE: Standard MLA practice requires double spacing within citations.

Waite, Linda J., Frances Kobrin Goldscheider, and Christina Witsberger. "Nonfamily Living and the Erosion of Traditional Family Orientations Among Young Adults." American Sociological Review 51.4 (1986): 541-554. Print.

More Sample Annotations

• ​​ Annotated Bibliography Examples
• ​ Annotated Bibliography Samples

The University of Toronto offers  an example  that illustrates how to summarize a study's research methods and argument.

The Memorial University of Newfoundland presents  these examples of both descriptive and critical annotations.

The Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin gives examples  of the some of the most common forms of annotated bibliographies.

The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina gives examples of several different forms of annotated bibliographies in 3 popular citation formats: 

• MLA Example
• APA Example
• CBE Example

This page was adapted with permission from the following:

http://guides.library.cornell.edu/annotatedbibliography

How to prepare an annotated bibliography Research & Learning Services Olin Library Cornell University Library  Ithaca, NY, USA

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How to Write a Research Paper: Annotated Bibliography

• Anatomy of a Research Paper
• Developing a Research Focus
• Background Research Tips
• Searching Tips
• Scholarly Journals vs. Popular Journals
• Thesis Statement
• Annotated Bibliography
• Citing Sources
• Evaluating Sources
• Literature Review
• Academic Integrity
• Scholarship as Conversation
• Understanding Fake News
• Data, Information, Knowledge

What is an Annotated Bibliography?

UMary Writing Center

Check out the resources available from the  Writing Center . 

Write an Annotated Bibliography

What is an annotated bibliography?

It is a list of citations for various books, articles, and other sources on a topic. 

An annotation is a short summary and/or critical evaluation of a source.

Annotated bibliographies answer the question: "What would be the most relevant, most useful, or most up-to-date sources for this topic?"

 Annotated bibliographies can be part of a larger research project, or can be a stand-alone report in itself. 

Annotation versus abstracts 

An abstract is a paragraph at the beginning of the paper that discusses the main point of the original work. They typically do not include evaluation comments. 

Annotations can either be descriptive or evaluative. The annotated bibliography looks like a works cited page but includes an annotation after each source cited. 

Types of Annotations: 

Descriptive Annotations: Focuses on description. Describes the source by answering the following questions. 

Who wrote the document?

What does the document discuss?

When and where was the document written? 

Why was the document produced?

How was it provided to the public?

Evaluative Annotations: Focuses on description and evaluation. Includes a summary and critically assess the work for accuracy, relevance, and quality. 

Evaluative annotations help you learn about your topic, develop a thesis statement, decide if a specific source will be useful for your assignment, and determine if there is enough valid information available to complete your project.

What does the annotation include?

Depending on your assignment and style guide, annotations may include some or all of the following information. 

• Should be no more than 150 words or 4 to 6 sentences long. 
• What is the main focus or purpose of the work?
• Who is the intended audience?
• ​How useful or relevant was the article to your topic?
• Was there any unique features that useful to you?
• What is the background and credibility of the author?
• What are any conclusions or observations that your reached about the article?

Which citation style to use?

There are many styles manuals with specific instructions on how to format your annotated bibliography. This largely depends on what your instructor prefers or your subject discipline. Check out our citation guides for more information. 

Additional Information

Why doesn't APA have an official APA-approved format for annotated bibliographies?

Always consult your instructor about the format of an annotated bibliography for your class assignments. These guides provide you with examples of various styles for annotated bibliographies and they may not be in the format required by your instructor. 

Citation Examples and Annotations

Book Citation with Descriptive Annotation

Liroff, R. A., & G. G. Davis. (1981). Protecting open space: Land use control in the Adirondack Park. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.

This book describes the implementation of regional planning and land use regulation in the Adirondack Park in upstate New York. The authors provide program evaluations of the Adirondack Park Agency’s regulatory and local planning assistance programs.

Journal Article Citation with Evaluative Annotation

Gottlieb, P. D. (1995). The “golden egg” as a natural resource: Toward a normative theory of growth management. Society and Natural Resources, 8, (5): 49-56.

This article explains the dilemma faced by North American suburbs, which demand both preservation of local amenities (to protect quality of life) and physical development (to expand the tax base). Growth management has been proposed as a policy solution to this dilemma. An analogy is made between this approach and resource economics. The author concludes that the growth management debate raises legitimate issues of sustainability and efficiency.

Examples were taken from http://lib.calpoly.edu/support/how-to/write-an-annotated-bibliography/#samples

Book Citation

Lee, Seok-hoon, Yong-pil Kim, Nigel Hemmington, and Deok-kyun Yun. “Competitive Service Quality Improvement (CSQI): A Case Study in the Fast-Food Industry.” Food Service Technology 4 (2004): 75-84.

In this highly technical paper, three industrial engineering professors in Korea and one services management professor in the UK discuss the mathematical limitations of the popular SERVQUAL scales. Significantly, they also aim to measure service quality in the fast-food industry, a neglected area of study. Unfortunately, the paper’s sophisticated analytical methods make it inaccessible to all but the most expert of researchers.

Battle, Ken. “Child Poverty: The Evolution and Impact of Child Benefits.”  A Question of Commitment: Children's Rights in Canada . Ed. Katherine Covell and R.Brian Howe. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. 2007. 21-44.

             Ken Battle draws on a close study of government documents, as well as his own research as an extensively-published policy analyst, to explain Canadian child benefit programs.  He outlines some fundamental assumptions supporting the belief that all society members should contribute to the upbringing of children.  His comparison of child poverty rates in a number of countries is a useful wake-up to anyone assuming Canadian society is doing a good job of protecting children.  Battle pays particular attention to the National Child Benefit (NCB), arguing that it did not deserve to be criticized by politicians and journalists.  He outlines the NCB’s development, costs, and benefits, and laments that the Conservative government scaled it back in favour of the inferior Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB).  However, he relies too heavily on his own work; he is the sole or primary author of almost half the sources in his bibliography.  He could make this work stronger by drawing from others' perspectives and analyses.  However, Battle does offer a valuable source for this essay, because the chapter provides a concise overview of government-funded assistance currently available to parents.  This offers context for analyzing the scope and financial reality of child poverty in Canada.

Journal Article Example

  Kerr, Don and Roderic Beaujot. “Child Poverty and Family Structure in Canada, 1981-1997.”  Journal of Comparative Family Studies  34.3 (2003): 321-335.

             Sociology professors Kerr and Beaujot analyze the demographics of impoverished families.  Drawing on data from Canada’s annual Survey of Consumer Finances, the authors consider whether each family had one or two parents, the age of single parents, and the number of children in each household.  They analyze child poverty rates in light of both these demographic factors and larger economic issues.  Kerr and Beaujot use this data to argue that. 

Examples were taken from  http://libguides.enc.edu/writing_basics/ annotatedbib/mla

Check out these resources for more information about Annotated Bibliographies. 

• Purdue Owl- Annotated Bibliographies
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill- Annotated Bibliographies
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EXPOS 20: The Social Construction of Gender

• About this Guide
• Scanning (for) Research
• Creating Your Annotated Bibliography

It's a Strategic Tool!

An annotated bibliography is one of the best tools to help you write your essay. It helps you remember the sources you have consulted and is a good starting point for organizing your argument. Annotated bibliographies can fulfill any and all of these functions:

For guidance on how to create your annotated bibliography, check out these resources:

Creating an Annotated Bibliography (Trinity University)

Writing an Annotated Bibliography (University of Toronto)

How to Prepare an Annotate Bibliography (Cornell University)

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How to Write an Annotated Bibliography

Writing annotations.

• Introduction
• New RefWorks
• Formatting Citations
• Sample Annotated Bibliographies

An annotation is a brief note following each citation listed on an annotated bibliography.  The goal is to briefly summarize the source and/or explain why it is important for a topic.  They are typically a single concise paragraph, but might be longer if you are summarizing and evaluating.

Annotations can be written in a variety of different ways and it’s important to consider the style you are going to use.  Are you simply summarizing the sources, or evaluating them?  How does the source influence your understanding of the topic?  You can follow any style you want if you are writing for your own personal research process, but consult with your professor if this is an assignment for a class.

Annotation Styles

• Combined Informative/Evaluative Style - This style is recommended by the library as it combines all the styles to provide a more complete view of a source.  The annotation should explain the value of the source for the overall research topic by providing a summary combined with an analysis of the source.  

Aluedse, O. (2006). Bullying in schools: A form of child abuse in schools.  Educational Research Quarterly ,  30 (1), 37.

The author classifies bullying in schools as a “form of child abuse,” and goes well beyond the notion that schoolyard bullying is “just child’s play.” The article provides an in-depth definition of bullying, and explores the likelihood that school-aged bullies may also experience difficult lives as adults. The author discusses the modern prevalence of bullying in school systems, the effects of bullying, intervention strategies, and provides an extensive list of resources and references.

Statistics included provide an alarming realization that bullying is prevalent not only in the United States, but also worldwide. According to the author, “American schools harbor approximately 2.1 million bullies and 2.7 million victims.” The author references the National Association of School Psychologists and quotes, “Thus, one in seven children is a bully or a target of bullying.” A major point of emphasis centers around what has always been considered a “normal part of growing up” versus the levels of actual abuse reached in today’s society.

The author concludes with a section that addresses intervention strategies for school administrators, teachers, counselors, and school staff. The concept of school staff helping build students’ “social competence” is showcased as a prevalent means of preventing and reducing this growing social menace. Overall, the article is worthwhile for anyone interested in the subject matter, and provides a wealth of resources for researching this topic of growing concern.

(Renfrow & Teuton, 2008)

• Informative Style -  Similar to an abstract, this style focuses on the summarizing the source.  The annotation should identify the hypothesis, results, and conclusions presented by the source.

Plester, B., Wood, C, & Bell, V. (2008). Txt msg n school literacy: Does texting and knowledge of text abbreviations adversely affect children's literacy attainment? Literacy , 42(3), 137-144.

Reports on two studies that investigated the relationship between children's texting behavior, their knowledge of text abbreviations, and their school attainment in written language skills. In Study One, 11 to 12 year-old children reported their texting behavior and translated a standard English sentence into a text message and vice versa. In Study Two, children's performance on writing measures were examined more specifically, spelling proficiency was also assessed, and KS2 Writing scores were obtained. Positive correlations between spelling ability and performance on the translation exercise were found, and group-based comparisons based on the children's writing scores also showed that good writing attainment was associated with greater use of texting abbreviations (textisms), although the direction of this association is not clear. Overall, these findings suggest that children's knowledge of textisms is not associated with poor written language outcomes for children in this age range. 

(Beach et al., 2009)

• Evaluative Style - This style analyzes and critically evaluates the source.  The annotation should comment on the source's the strengths, weaknesses, and how it relates to the overall research topic.

Amott, T. (1993). Caught in the Crisis: Women in the U.S. Economy Today . New York: Monthly Review Press.

A very readable (140 pp) economic analysis and information book which I am currently considering as a required collateral assignment in Economics 201. Among its many strengths is a lucid connection of "The Crisis at Home" with the broader, macroeconomic crisis of the U.S. working class (which various other authors have described as the shrinking middle class or the crisis of de-industrialization).

(Papadantonakis, 1996)

• Indicative Style - This style of annotation identifies the main theme and lists the significant topics included in the source.  Usually no specific details are given beyond the topic list . 

Example: 

Gambell, T.J., & Hunter, D. M. (1999). Rethinking gender differences in literacy. Canadian Journal of Education , 24(1) 1-16.

Five explanations are offered for recently assessed gender differences in the literacy achievement of male and female students in Canada and other countries. The explanations revolve around evaluative bias, home socialization, role and societal expectations, male psychology, and equity policy.

(Kerka & Imel, 2004)

Beach, R., Bigelow, M., Dillon, D., Dockter, J., Galda, L., Helman, L., . . . Janssen, T. (2009). Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English.  Research in the Teaching of English,   44 (2), 210-241. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27784357

Kerka, S., & Imel, S. (2004). Annotated bibliography: Women and literacy.  Women's Studies Quarterly,  32 (1), 258-271. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/233645656?accountid=2909

Papadantonakis, K. (1996). Selected Annotated Bibliography for Economists and Other Social Scientists.  Women's Studies Quarterly,   24 (3/4), 233-238. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40004384

Renfrow, T.G., & Teuton, L.M. (2008). Schoolyard bullying: Peer victimization an annotated bibliography. Community & Junior College Libraries, 14(4), 251-­275. doi:10.1080/02763910802336407

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Research Strategies

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• Literature Review How to

What is An Annotated Bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a list of sources (books, articles, websites, etc.) with short paragraph about each source. An annotated bibliography is sometimes a useful step before drafting a research paper, or it can stand alone as an overview of the research available on a topic.

Each source in the annotated bibliography has a citation - the information a reader needs to find the original source, in a consistent format to make that easier. These consistent formats are called citation styles.  The most common citation styles are MLA (Modern Language Association) for humanities, and APA (American Psychological Association) for social sciences.

Annotations are about 4 to 6 sentences long (roughly 150 words), and address:

•     Main focus or purpose of the work
•     Usefulness or relevance to your research topic 
•     Special features of the work that were unique or helpful
•     Background and credibility of the author
•     Conclusions or observations reached by the author
•     Conclusions or observations reached by you

Annotations versus Abstracts

Many scholarly articles start with an abstract, which is the author's summary of the article to help you decide whether you should read the entire article.  This abstract is not the same thing as an annotation.  The annotation needs to be in your own words, to explain the relevance of the source to your particular assignment or research question.

Annotated Bibliography video

MLA 9th Annotated Bibliography Examples

Ontiveros, Randy J.  In the Spirit of a New People: The Cultural Politics of the Chicano Movement . New York UP, 2014.

This book analyzes the journalism, visual arts, theater, and novels of the Chicano movement from 1960 to the present as articulations of personal and collective values. Chapter 3 grounds the theater of El Teatro Campesino in the labor and immigrant organizing of the period, while Chapter 4 situates Sandra Cisneros’s novel  Caramelo  in the struggles of Chicana feminists to be heard in the traditional and nationalist elements of the Chicano movement. Ontiveros provides a powerful and illuminating historical context for the literary and political texts of the movement.

Journal article

Alvarez, Nadia, and Jack Mearns. “The Benefits of Writing and Performing in the Spoken Word Poetry Community.”  The Arts in Psychotherapy , vol. 41, no. 3, July 2014, pp. 263-268.  ScienceDirect ,  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2014.03.004 .

Spoken word poetry is distinctive because it is written to be performed out loud, in person, by the poet. The ten poets interviewed by these authors describe “a reciprocal relationship between the audience and the poet” created by that practice of performance. To build community, spoken word poets keep metaphor and diction relatively simple and accessible. Richness is instead built through fragmented stories that coalesce into emotional narratives about personal and community concerns.  This understanding of poets’ intentions illuminates their recorded performances.

*Note, citations have a .5 hanging indent and the annotations have a 1 inch indent. 

• MLA 9th Sample Annotated Bibliography

APA 7th Annotated Bibliography Examples

Alvarez, N. & Mearns, J. (2014). The benefits of writing and performing in the spoken word poetry community.  The Arts in Psychotherapy, 41 (3), 263-268.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2014.03.004 Prior research has shown narrative writing to help with making meaning out of trauma. This article uses grounded theory to analyze semi-structured interviews with ten spoken word poets.  Because spoken word poetry is performed live, it creates personal and community connections that enhance the emotional development and resolution offered by the practice of writing. The findings are limited by the small, nonrandom sample (all the participants were from the same community).

• APA 7th Sample Annotated Bibliography
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Research Process :: Step by Step

• Introduction
• Select Topic
• Identify Keywords
• Background Information
• Develop Research Questions
• Refine Topic
• Search Strategy
• Popular Databases
• Evaluate Sources
• Types of Periodicals
• Reading Scholarly Articles
• Primary & Secondary Sources
• Organize / Take Notes
• Writing & Grammar Resources
• Annotated Bibliography
• Literature Review
• Citation Styles
• Paraphrasing
• Privacy / Confidentiality
• Research Process
• Selecting Your Topic
• Identifying Keywords
• Gathering Background Info
• Evaluating Sources

The quality and usefulness of your bibliography will depend on your selection of sources. Define the scope of your research carefully to make sound judgments about what you include and exclude.

What is an annotated bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents that follows the appropriate style format for the discipline (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc). Each citation is followed by a brief (usually about 150 word) descriptive and evaluative paragraph -- the annotation. Unlike abstracts, which are purely descriptive summaries often found at the beginning of scholarly journal articles or in periodical indexes, annotations are descriptive and critical. 

The purpose of the annotation is to  inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited .  The annotation exposes the author's point of view, clarity and appropriateness of expression, and authority.

How do I create an annotated bibliography?

• Locate and record citations to books, periodicals, and documents that contain useful information and ideas on your topic.
• Review the items. Choose those sources that provide a  variety of perspectives on your topic.
• Cite the book, article, or document using the appropriate style. 
• Write a concise annotation that  summarizes the central theme and scope o f the item.

Include  one or more sentences  that:

o    evaluate the authority or background of the author, 

o    comment on the intended audience, 

o    compare or contrast this work with another you have cited, or 

o    explain how this work illuminates your bibliography topic.

The annotation should include most, if not all, of the following elements:

• Explanation of the main purpose and scope of t he cited work;
• Brief description of the work's format and content;
• Theoretical basis and currency of the author's argument; 
• Author's intellectual / academic credentials; 
• Work's intended audience;
• Value and significance of the work as a contribution to the subject under consideration;
• Possible shortcomings or bias in the work;
• Any significant special features of the work (e.g., glossary, appendices, particularly good index);
• Your own brief impression of the work.

An annotated bibliography is an  original work created by you  for a wider audience, usually faculty and colleagues. Copying any of the above elements from the source and including it in your annotated bibliography is plagiarism and intellectual dishonesty.

SAMPLE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTRY FOR A JOURNAL ARTICLE

The following example uses APA style ( Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , 6th edition, 2010)  for the journal citation.

Waite, L. J., Goldschneider, F. K., & Witsberger, C. (1986). Nonfamily living and the erosion of traditional family orientations among young adults.  American Sociological Review,   51 , 541-554.

This example uses MLA style ( MLA Handbook , 8th edition, 2016)  for the journal citation.

Waite, Linda J., et al. "Nonfamily Living and the Erosion of Traditional Family Orientations Among Young Adults."  American Sociological Review,  vol. 51, no. 4, 1986, pp. 541-554.

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Writing an Annotated Bibliography

An annotated bibliography is a summary and evaluation of a resource. Writing an annotated bibliography will help you gain an in-depth understanding of your topics and is useful for organizing and cataloging resources for use when developing an argument. An annotated bibliography begins with an APA formatted reference followed by one or two paragraphs of text that summarizes the study, evaluates the reliability of the information, and evaluates how the information relates to previous and future research. 

This table provides a high-level outline of the structure of a research article and how each section relates to important information for developing an annotated bibliography.

Annotated Bibliography Sample Outline

Author, S. A. (date of publication). Title of the article.  Title of Periodical, vol.  (issue), page-page.  https://doi.org/XXXXXX

Write one or two paragraphs that focus on the study and its findings.

• Two or more sentences that outline the thesis, hypothesis, and population of the study.
• Two or more sentences that discuss the methodology.
• Two or more sentences that discuss the study findings.  
• One or more sentences evaluating the study and its relationship to other studies.
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• Example annotations

WHAT IS AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY?

An annotated bibliography is 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.

ANNOTATIONS VS. ABSTRACTS

Abstracts are the purely descriptive summaries often found at the beginning of scholarly journal articles or in periodical indexes. Annotations are descriptive and critical; they may describe the author's point of view, authority, or clarity and appropriateness of expression.

Permission to use all content in the tabs on this page granted from: Olin Library Reference Research & Learning Services Cornell University Library Ithaca, NY, USA

This guide shared under a Creative Commons Commons Deed, version 2.0 regarding attribution, noncommercial use, and "Share Alike" reuse.

WRITING AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Creating an annotated bibliography calls for the application of a variety of intellectual skills: concise exposition, succinct analysis, and informed library research.

• First, locate and record citations to books, periodicals, and documents that may contain useful information and ideas on your topic. Briefly examine and review the actual items. Then choose those works that provide a variety of perspectives on your topic.
• Cite the book, article, or document using the appropriate style -- here is a page explaining and offering examples of the different major citation styles.
• Write a concise annotation that summarizes the central theme and scope of the book or article. Include one or more sentences that (a) evaluate the authority or background of the author, (b) comment on the intended audience, (c) compare or contrast this work with another you have cited, or (d) explain how this work illuminates your bibliography topic.

SAMPLE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTRY FOR A JOURNAL ARTICLE

The following example uses APA style ( Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , 6th edition, 2010)  for the journal citation:

Waite, L. J., Goldschneider, F. K., & Witsberger, C. (1986). Nonfamily living and the erosion of traditional family orientations among young adults.  American Sociological Review,   51 , 541-554. The authors, researchers at the Rand Corporation and Brown University, use data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women and Young Men to test their hypothesis that nonfamily living by young adults alters their attitudes, values, plans, and expectations, moving them away from their belief in traditional sex roles. They find their hypothesis strongly supported in young females, while the effects were fewer in studies of young males. Increasing the time away from parents before marrying increased individualism, self-sufficiency, and changes in attitudes about families. In contrast, an earlier study by Williams cited below shows no significant gender differences in sex role attitudes as a result of nonfamily living.

This example uses MLA style ( MLA Handbook , 8th edition, 2016)  for the journal citation:

Waite, Linda J., et al. "Nonfamily Living and the Erosion of Traditional Family Orientations Among Young Adults."  American Sociological Review,  vol. 51, no. 4, 1986, pp. 541-554. The authors, researchers at the Rand Corporation and Brown University, use data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women and Young Men to test their hypothesis that nonfamily living by young adults alters their attitudes, values, plans, and expectations, moving them away from their belief in traditional sex roles. They find their hypothesis strongly supported in young females, while the effects were fewer in studies of young males. Increasing the time away from parents before marrying increased individualism, self-sufficiency, and changes in attitudes about families. In contrast, an earlier study by Williams cited below shows no significant gender differences in sex role attitudes as a result of nonfamily living.

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Annotated primary scientific literature: A pedagogical tool for undergraduate courses

Affiliations Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, United States of America, STEM Transformation Institute, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, United States of America

* E-mail: [email protected]

• Matthew Kararo, 
• Melissa McCartney

Published: January 9, 2019

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103
• Reader Comments

Annotated primary scientific literature is a teaching and learning resource that provides scaffolding for undergraduate students acculturating to the authentic scientific practice of obtaining and evaluating information through the medium of primary scientific literature. Utilizing annotated primary scientific literature as an integrated pedagogical tool could enable more widespread use of primary scientific literature in undergraduate science classrooms with minimal disruption to existing syllabi. Research is ongoing to determine an optimal implementation protocol, with these preliminary iterations presented here serving as a first look at how students respond to annotated primary scientific literature. The undergraduate biology student participants in our study did not, in general, have an abundance of experience reading primary scientific literature; however, they found the annotations useful, especially for vocabulary and graph interpretation. We present here an implementation protocol for using annotated primary literature in the classroom that minimizes the use of valuable classroom time and requires no additional pedagogical training for instructors.

Citation: Kararo M, McCartney M (2019) Annotated primary scientific literature: A pedagogical tool for undergraduate courses. PLoS Biol 17(1): e3000103. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103

Copyright: © 2019 Kararo, McCartney. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: This research was supported through National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education 1525596 (MM) and Florida International University College of Arts, Sciences & Education Postdoctoral Fellowship (MM and MK). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Abbreviations: CREATE, consider, read, elucidate the hypotheses, Analyze and interpret the data, and think of the next experiment; FIU, Florida International University; SitC, Science in the Classroom; STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math; TOSLS, Test of Scientific Literacy Skills

Provenance: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

A major output of public research universities is primary scientific literature, in addition to educating students and conferring degrees. It is imperative for researchers and universities to increase the transparency and outreach of the primary research literature they produce. However, most primary scientific literature remains unknown and/or inaccessible to the public, because it is published in journals targeting academics in the same field and is often placed behind journal paywalls [ 1 ].

Public research universities also have a responsibility to produce scientifically literate graduates [ 2 , 3 ]. Many students graduate without an understanding of scientific practices and an acculturation to interpreting scientific communication, especially primary scientific literature [ 4 , 5 ]. One way to potentially improve scientific literacy overall and develop specific skills, such as interpreting scientific communication, is to incorporate primary scientific literature into the undergraduate curricula and provide pedagogical tools that may help bridge the divide between everyday language and the language used by experts [ 6 – 11 ].

The study of primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool in undergraduate biology courses has led to innovative approaches. The most well-known of these may be the Consider, Read, Elucidate the hypotheses, Analyze and interpret the data, and Think of the next Experiment (CREATE) method, in which faculty redesign their existing courses around primary scientific literature in order to provide an intensive and comprehensive analysis of primary scientific literature for undergraduates [ 6 , 12 – 14 ]. Although this type of a semester-long innovative elective course provided student benefits, adding an entire course to a degree sequence may prove difficult and by definition, does not impact students that choose not to include them in an already credit-crunched plan of study. This credit-crunch is especially prevalent at institutions such as the one in this study, Florida International University (FIU), where any additional credit hours are charged at out-of-state tuition rates. Therefore, it would benefit biology education, and biology as a field of study, to develop innovative ways to utilize primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool, ideally with a minimal impact to existing plans of study and time investment from course instructors.

A growing body of research shows that less-intensive interventions using primary scientific literature can be valuable and useful in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, with the greatest amount of research happening at the undergraduate level. Programs include journal clubs, data and figure exploration, and tutorials on how to read primary scientific literature [ 15 – 17 ]. Assessment tools used to evaluate these interventions are equally as diverse, ranging from rubrics to validated surveys [ 18 , 19 ].

Annotated primary scientific literature

Annotated primary scientific literature is designed to help readers interpret complex science by overlaying additional information on a scientific research article. Preserving the original text and its context is what makes annotated primary scientific research literature unique from other genres that modify or rewrite the original text. This preservation is the key difference between annotated primary scientific literature and adapted primary literature, an approach that takes portions of primary scientific literature and rewrites the original content to turn them into pedagogical tools [ 20 ]. Science in the Classroom (SitC; www.scienceintheclassroom.org ) is a highly developed and sophisticated example of annotated primary scientific literature that we decided has potential for classroom pedagogical use.

SitC, a collection of freely available annotated papers, aims to make primary scientific research literature more accessible to students and educators. The repository of annotated primary scientific literature articles is accessible to educators and searchable by keyword, classified by topics, and grouped in collections. The process of reading and deconstructing scientific literature in undergraduate courses has been shown to result in students potentially gaining an understanding of scientific practices, such as how scientists design their experiments and present their results, essentially allowing students to experience the logic behind drawing conclusions from a set of data [ 6 , 7 , 12 – 14 ].

Annotated primary scientific literature uses the original text of research articles along with a “Learning Lens” overlay, designed to provide students tools to use for interpretation. The “Learning Lens” is used to selectively highlight different parts of the text and is composed of seven headings: Glossary, Previous work, Author's experiments, Conclusions, News and policy links, Connect to learning standards, and References and notes, which are color-coded to match the corresponding text of the research article. For example, an annotated glossary term, when clicked on, will produce a pop-up box containing the definition of the word ( Fig 1 ). Annotations contained within the “Learning Lens” have been designed to be at the reading comprehension level of a first-year undergraduate student, and ongoing evaluation efforts have provided evidence that this goal is being met [ 21 ].

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103.g001

Annotated primary literature as a pedagogical tool

Annotations provide an educational scaffold that could help students become more comfortable with reading scientific papers. We propose annotated primary scientific literature as an example of a resource that can be incorporated into existing courses and provide scaffolding that may help undergraduate students develop skills necessary to read primary scientific literature while requiring a minimal time investment from instructors. Using annotated primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool not only could potentially help universities develop scientifically literate graduates, but it may also broaden the impact of primary scientific research literature produced by faculty.

The previously mentioned pedagogical tools and curriculum transformations can require a substantial investment of time and effort from the university, faculty, and staff. Therefore, additional tools and opportunities should be considered in order to achieve a wider variety of complementary opportunities for teaching with authentic scientific practices and engaging students in reading primary scientific literature [ 22 ]. We hypothesize that the incorporation of annotated primary scientific literature in the classroom represents one of these opportunities.

In this pilot study, we had a goal of developing an implementation protocol that could incorporate annotated primary scientific literature into undergraduate courses with a minimal time investment for instructors and minimal disruption and alteration to existing courses and plans of study.

Implementation of annotated primary scientific literature

All data were collected in accordance with an approved FIU Institutional Review Board protocol #17–0398 and #17–0105. Our initial attempts to develop an implementation protocol for using annotated primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool had the educational goal of introducing students to the “Learning Lens” annotations and observing how instructors and students used the tool. Initial attempts to incorporate annotated primary scientific literature focused on undergraduate biology courses at FIU, including General Biology II, Ecology, and Plant Life History. The implementation sessions were run iteratively during the same semester, ensuring that students did not overlap, and each class had only one implementation session. We describe two variations of our implementations here.

Students involved in the study self-reported their major, with 76% being biology majors. We did not collect any data on students’ prior knowledge of biology, but the majority of students in these classes are first- or second-year students.

We used the same annotated piece of primary scientific literature for all in-class activities described in this study: “Caffeine in floral nectar enhances a pollinator's memory of reward” ( https://tinyurl.com/k7m329g ). We chose an article that incorporated many different aspects of biology, including evolution, ecosystem interactions, basic botany, learning and memory, and animal behavior in a single study, making this paper applicable in a wide variety of undergraduate courses.

The objectives were to introduce undergraduate students to annotated primary scientific literature and collect baseline data on how students interacted with the annotations themselves. The first implementation involved a one-time intervention, connected to the student’s coursework, conducted by the researchers and began with an approximately 5-minute orientation to annotated primary scientific literature. This orientation included how to use the “Learning Lens” and a brief overview of the importance of primary scientific literature. Students were then given 20 minutes to read the selected piece of annotated primary scientific literature. At the 20-minute time point, a Qualtrics (online survey software; Provo, Utah and Seattle, Washington) link was provided, and if they were done reading, students could begin answering the feedback questionnaire. Students were given an additional 20 minutes to complete the questionnaire. Collecting and analyzing this first round of pilot data allowed for reflection on opportunities for iterative improvement.

In addition to the questionnaire data, feedback was collected through in-class activity observations conducted by the researchers. We kept detailed field notes indicating when students appeared on task, i.e., independently interacting with annotated primary scientific literature. We also noted when alternative tasks were observed, i.e., students checking email or social media, and when task completion appeared to have occurred. During the implementation, our in-class observations estimated an average time on task, i.e., interacting with annotated primary scientific literature, to be 10 minutes, because there was a noticeable increase in classroom noise after this time point. We confirmed this by using Adobe Analytics (Adobe, San Jose, California), which measures the time spent on a website by each user. We measured an average time spent on annotated primary scientific literature of 13 minutes. Due to limitations of Adobe Analytics, we are unable to collect individual data points and were limited to an aggregate average for the entire class. Note that the difference between the observed time spent on the activity and the digital measure can be explained by Adobe Analytics averaging all participants’ time spent on the article page.

The main student feedback was collected through a questionnaire containing both quantitative (content questions) and qualitative items (i.e., “what did you like about this activity?”). One of the key ideas we garnered from the qualitative data was that a one-time intervention was perceived by students as somewhat discordant when a connection between the article they read and the content they were covering at the time in their course was not made explicit by their course instructor ( Table 1 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103.t001

When asked if the topic of the paper related to their course, students in this iteration gave feedback such as this activity was “only slightly relevant to the course,” and “no, we[‘re] studying plants” despite the article being explicitly about caffeine production by plants in order to attract pollinators. Additionally, we were uncertain that we had connected with the students as researchers in the same way as the instructor with whom the students had built a relationship.

Although some students may have not perceived a connection between the article content and their course content, in general, students found the annotations useful, especially regarding graphs and vocabulary interpretation. Examples of student responses can be seen in Table 2 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103.t002

For our second iteration, we decided to address the issues of students feeling discordant by having the course instructors introduce the article and annotated primary scientific literature activity themselves. Additionally, we asked instructors to explicitly connect the annotated paper to current course content. With both of these procedures in place, the average time students engaged with the annotated article, as measured by Adobe Analytics, increased to 19 minutes ( Fig 2 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103.g002

This new implementation, in which the instructor introduced the piece of annotated primary scientific literature and annotated primary scientific literature activity, not only appeared to increase the time that students engaged with the material, but it also removed the manpower requirement for the researchers to be present in every classroom in order to describe and implement the activity. This could allow for a more widespread implementation of annotated primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool. It was also apparent that students introduced to the activity by their course instructor were more readily able to recognize the connections between reading primary scientific research literature and their course content, which can be seen in student responses in Table 3 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103.t003

When asked if the topic of the paper related to their course, students in this iteration stated “This article related to 3 different courses I am taking this semester,” “yes it most certainly did,” “yes! We’re learning about pollination,” and that “…scientific papers on new experiments …are important.”

During the initial iterations of the implementation protocol, students read the annotated articles and completed an assessment during class time. However, a growing concern was feasibility of an in-class assignment due to the time requirement and allowing for instructor flexibility in scheduling. While observing a senior lecturer at FIU, who was not involved in this current study, and his existing implementation method of students reading primary scientific literature as homework and answering iClicker questions at the beginning of the following class, the researchers noticed an increased enthusiasm among the students during the class discussion. Supporting this observation, the history of research on the use of clickers in the classroom shows an increase in feelings of class involvement [ 23 ] and learning gains in students [ 24 ]. Because of the observations and support from instructors, the decision was made to adopt the homework protocol moving forward with future implementations. The homework protocol allows for more instructor freedom in selecting articles relevant to course content, reduces the class time required for implementation, and separates content questions from a pre–post attitude and motivation questionnaire. Using articles as homework also allows for instructors to utilize as many articles as they wish, but for this project moving forward, in future implementations, we will require a minimum of three articles over the course of a semester. We are currently piloting an implementation protocol using annotated primary scientific literature as a homework assignment and are excited to see how instructors and students use annotated primary scientific literature moving forward.

Advice to others

In the ongoing iterative development of an implementation protocol for annotated primary scientific literature, the most fruitful exercise has been reflection. This is great practice for any educator or educational researcher during the curriculum or pedagogical tool development process. Reflection on early classroom implementations helped us identify the opportunities for improvement in our subsequent protocol iterations and allowed us to make modifications based upon quantitative, qualitative, and observational data. One example of changes coming from reflection was noticing that during an implementation, students were opening the assessment without reading the article and using the “find” feature within the article to find answers to assessment questions. This led to preventing entry into the assessment until the time for reading had elapsed. Our subsequent classroom observations showed us that this forced students to interact with the article and be more thoughtful about their answers to the assessment, i.e., answers were not cut-and-pasted from the article text. We advise others to continue this practice of thoughtful reflection when using annotated primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool. We also welcome any feedback or alternative uses of annotated primary scientific literature.

Future steps

The latest annotated primary scientific literature implementation protocol iteration is being pilot tested during fall 2018. Focusing more on robust evaluation now that implementation obstacles have been overcome will allow us to determine the effectiveness of annotated primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool in undergraduate biology classrooms. Future studies are being designed to examine students’ scientific literacy before and after completing the annotated article activities using a previously validated scientific literacy instrument (Test of Scientific Literacy Skills [TOSLS]) [ 2 ]. Additionally, we aim to measure students’ subjective task values with regards to reading primary scientific research literature [ 25 – 28 ], as well as their primary scientific literature reading self-efficacy [ 29 – 32 ].

We hope to spread the word about annotated primary scientific literature and investigate its potential impacts on student learning and motivation as we further refine our implementation protocol and propagate beyond our department and institution.

Acknowledgments

We thank Beth Ruedi and Shelby Lake at AAAS, and Rebecca Vieyra for help editing this manuscript, our FIU colleagues Richard Brinn, Ligia Collado-Vides, Sat Gavassa, John Geiger, Camila Granados-Cifuentes, Zahra Hazari, Suzanne Koptur, and Sparkle Malone for providing us with class time, and all the participating students at FIU.

• View Article
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• 22. National Academy of Sciences. Discipline-based education research: Understanding and improving learning in undergraduate science and engineering. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2012.
• 25. Eccles J, Adler TF, Futterman R, Goff SB, Kaczala CM, Meece JL, et al. Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors. In: Spence JT, editor. Achievement and achievement motives: Psychological and sociological approaches. San Francisco, CA: W.H. Freeman; 1983. pp. 75–146.
• 29. Bandura A. Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall; 1977.
• 30. Bandura A. Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall; 1986.
• 32. Bandura A. Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman; 1997.

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Sample Annotated Papers

• Dosage compensation via transposable element mediated rewiring of a regulatory network
• BRCA1 tumor suppression depends on BRCT phosphoprotein binding, but not its E3 ligase activity
• The mutagenic chain reaction: A method for converting heterozygous to homozygous mutations

Components of Scientific Research Articles

Introduction.

Steps to Annotating A Scientific Paper

• Locate each of the components (Abstract, Introduction, etc.)
• Identify unfamiliar words in these sections that are important to understanding the research.
• Define the unfamiliar words. Use Google or Credo Reference dictionaries.  Try NHGRI Talking Glossary of Genetic Terms  or Scitable Glossary from Nature .  
• Annotate each section by summarizing the main idea or paraphrasing important sentences.  Write to an audience of first-year college students.

Science in the Classroom

Science in the Classroom (SitC) features annotated  research articles published in the  Science  family of journals. SitC uses 7 categories of annotations, each called a "LEARNING LENS" - - Glossary, Previous work [Introduction], Author's experiments [Methods], Results and Conclusions, News and policy links, Learning standards, and References and notes.   Click on each LEARNING LENS to turn annotations on and off.  Figures in the papers also have tabs with more detailed explanations to help the reader.

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Annotated Bibliography Samples

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Below you will find sample annotations from annotated bibliographies, each with a different research project. Remember that the annotations you include in your own bibliography should reflect your research project and/or the guidelines of your assignment.

As mentioned elsewhere in this resource, depending on the purpose of your bibliography, some annotations may summarize, some may assess or evaluate a source, and some may reflect on the source’s possible uses for the project at hand. Some annotations may address all three of these steps. Consider the purpose of your annotated bibliography and/or your instructor’s directions when deciding how much information to include in your annotations.

Please keep in mind that all your text, including the write-up beneath the citation, must be indented so that the author's last name is the only text that is flush left.

Sample MLA Annotation

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life . Anchor Books, 1995.

Lamott's book offers honest advice on the nature of a writing life, complete with its insecurities and failures. Taking a humorous approach to the realities of being a writer, the chapters in Lamott's book are wry and anecdotal and offer advice on everything from plot development to jealousy, from perfectionism to struggling with one's own internal critic.

In the process, Lamott includes writing exercises designed to be both productive and fun. Lamott offers sane advice for those struggling with the anxieties of writing, but her main project seems to be offering the reader a reality check regarding writing, publishing, and struggling with one's own imperfect humanity in the process. Rather than a practical handbook to producing and/or publishing, this text is indispensable because of its honest perspective, its down-to-earth humor, and its encouraging approach.

Chapters in this text could easily be included in the curriculum for a writing class. Several of the chapters in Part 1 address the writing process and would serve to generate discussion on students' own drafting and revising processes. Some of the writing exercises would also be appropriate for generating classroom writing exercises. Students should find Lamott's style both engaging and enjoyable.

In the sample annotation above, the writer includes three paragraphs: a summary, an evaluation of the text, and a reflection on its applicability to his/her own research, respectively.

For information on formatting MLA citations, see our MLA 9th Edition (2021) Formatting and Style Guide .

Sample APA Annotation

Ehrenreich, B. (2001). Nickel and dimed: On (not) getting by in America . Henry Holt and Company.

In this book of nonfiction based on the journalist's experiential research, Ehrenreich attempts to ascertain whether it is currently possible for an individual to live on a minimum-wage in America. Taking jobs as a waitress, a maid in a cleaning service, and a Walmart sales employee, the author summarizes and reflects on her work, her relationships with fellow workers, and her financial struggles in each situation.

An experienced journalist, Ehrenreich is aware of the limitations of her experiment and the ethical implications of her experiential research tactics and reflects on these issues in the text. The author is forthcoming about her methods and supplements her experiences with scholarly research on her places of employment, the economy, and the rising cost of living in America. Ehrenreich’s project is timely, descriptive, and well-researched.

The annotation above both summarizes and assesses the book in the citation. The first paragraph provides a brief summary of the author's project in the book, covering the main points of the work. The second paragraph points out the project’s strengths and evaluates its methods and presentation. This particular annotation does not reflect on the source’s potential importance or usefulness for this person’s own research.

For information on formatting APA citations, see our APA Formatting and Style Guide .

Sample Chicago Manual of Style Annotation

Davidson, Hilda Ellis. Roles of the Northern Goddess . London: Routledge, 1998.

Davidson's book provides a thorough examination of the major roles filled by the numerous pagan goddesses of Northern Europe in everyday life, including their roles in hunting, agriculture, domestic arts like weaving, the household, and death. The author discusses relevant archaeological evidence, patterns of symbol and ritual, and previous research. The book includes a number of black and white photographs of relevant artifacts.

This annotation includes only one paragraph, a summary of the book. It provides a concise description of the project and the book's project and its major features.

For information on formatting Chicago Style citations, see our Chicago Manual of Style resources.

Annotated Bibliography Guide: Sample Annotated Bibliographies

• Definition and Formats
• Elements of Annotation
• Sample Annotated Bibliographies

Sample Bibliographies

SAMPLE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTRY FOR A JOURNAL ARTICLE ( From the Cornell Libraries )

The following example uses the APA format for the journal citation. NOTE: APA requires double spacing within citations.

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Open access for community partners, impactful outputs for scholars: Leveraging scholarly communication movements to enhance reciprocity in community based research

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Many corners of the academy are actively working to build bridges between research in the ivory tower to outcomes and needs in the community. Our study seeks to unify two such efforts – community-based/service-learning research and open access scholarly communication. Open access is an implicit value in community-based and service-learning research, and is part of the symbiotic relationship value, but has not been explicitly discussed, framed, or embraced as a value or goal. We explore existing literature on the desire for research-informed practices from community members and practitioners, the current state of open informational practices from scholarly publications dedicated to work happening in community spaces, and make recommendations for good practices for editors, publishers, researchers, and institutions looking to link the work of scholars to the needs of the community and evaluate impact.

Keywords: Open Access, Reciprocity, Scholarly Impact, Community Impact, Community Based Research, CBR, Service Learning, Scholarly Communication

Ivey, O. & Borchardt, R., (2024) “Open access for community partners, impactful outputs for scholars: Leveraging scholarly communication movements to enhance reciprocity in community based research”, Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 30(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsl.3682

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Published on 26 apr 2024, peer reviewed, creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 4.0, introduction.

From the cooperative extension service at public land grant institutions to the vision and values statements of private liberal arts institutions, and the mission of community colleges, engagement with communities beyond the walls of the academy are notable values of higher education. Service-learning, and community-based research (CBR) are important tools for institutions of higher learning to bridge town-gown divides, enhance student learning, and make a case for the value of higher education. While these values of community engagement have deep roots, the 21st century has seen significant growth in the deliberate articulation and promotion of community integration into classroom activities and research. This growth can be seen in the inclusion of service-learning as a “high impact practice” by the American Association of Colleges & Universities ( Kuh, 2008 ) and the growth of organizations like Campus Compact, which launched with three founding institutions in 1985 and now has state and regional affiliates serving and organizing hundreds of institutions ( Campus Compact, 2022 ). Stated values from CBR and service-learning scholars include reciprocity and mutual benefit ( Israel et al., 1998 ; Maiter et al., 2008 ). Simultaneously, the open access movement in scholarly communication has worked to open previously paywalled scholarship to all interested readers. The open access movement has its roots in the removal of barriers, particularly subscription barriers to access research. This helps combat unsustainable journal pricing while satisfying funder mandates to openly publish funded research for the benefit of the funder and the public or broader community it serves ( BOAI, 2002 ; Larivière et al., 2015 ). The mutual benefit and reciprocity values of CBR and the public benefit of open access research seem well aligned. Our research seeks to determine if the definition of reciprocity has come to include open access publishing by CBR journals by giving access to published scholarship to the communities who helped produce it. We will further explore how these scholarly publishing practices do or do not meet the needs of scholars as they build their careers in academic research institutions. Finally, we will make recommendations on leveraging the knowledge and tools of both movements to further advance the value each.

Key Definitions and Concepts

Over the years a range of vocabulary and jargon has grown to describe work that ties the teaching and research goals of the academy to their communities. While each term has its own purpose and nuance, not all town-gown relations are in scope for this paper. Likewise, open research principles are far-reaching in its aims and formats. Our emphasis will be on the following:

Community-Based Research (CBR)

As defined by Strand et al. ( 2003 ) in Community-Based Research in Higher Education “CBR is a partnership of students, faculty, and community members who collaboratively engage in research with the purpose of solving a pressing community problem or effecting social change” (p. 3). Of all the forms of working beyond the boundaries of campus, CBR taps directly into the research mission of colleges and universities, naturally raising questions about how these research findings are published and who has access. Some publications, institutions, and research methodology guides use the terms Community Engaged Research, Community Based Participatory Research , or Community Based Qualitative Research . These modifiers each seek to emphasize the inclusive and active nature of research with the community. For our purposes, we will discuss CBR as inclusive of these variants.

Service-Learning and Extension Service

Service-learning is “a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs, together with structured opportunities for reflection designed to achieve learning outcomes.” ( Jacoby & Howard, 2014, p. 2 ). The value of reciprocity – that students and community partners find mutual benefit in the interaction – is deeply emphasized in service-learning. On the campus side of the hyphen, service-learning is more deeply rooted in student learning than the pursuit of research. Even so, the reflection piece results in written student outputs suitable for publication, and for the scholarship of teaching and learning; service-learning provides a rich opportunity to study the pedagogical and community benefits of the practice. For this reason, there are scholarly publications outlets with a service-learning focus and we have chosen to include those in our scope of review, and given the shared value of balancing community and academic needs with benefit for all.

Cooperative Extension Service

Established by the Smith-Lever Act ( 1914 ), public land grant universities have established cooperative extension services to use the knowledge built by the academy to support their communities (7 U.S.C. 341 § 1). While restricted to universities with these programs, there are journals dedicated to extension service work and are in scope for this review.

Open Access Publishing

Open access (OA) is a complex and ever-changing area of scholarly communications with a clear goal: making information openly available and accessible. Open access publishing arose in response to subscription-based models of scholarly publication, most notably with journal articles. For many years, increases in subscription rates have outpaced inflation, resulting in unsustainable subscription pricing in order to access paywalled content, and leaving institutions or individuals who cannot afford subscriptions without access to needed scholarly literature ( Larivière et al., 2015 ). Many models of open access publication have emerged as an alternative to the subscription-based model of access, all of which provide an alternative structure of financial support for journals other than the traditional subscription-based model.

Today, for-profit publishers see some open access models as a promising revenue stream to supplement subscription revenues ( Butler et al., 2022 ). For example, Elsevier’s parent company, RELX, noted in its 2022 annual report that “pay-to-publish open access articles [are] growing particularly strongly” ( 2023. ). Initiatives like OA2020, paired with a rise in library subscription cancellations, mean that open access funding is increasingly important to publishers in order to maintain or increase revenues ( n.d. ). However, the sustainability of different open access models is a growing concern for those who financially support open access publishing, including libraries and research funders ( Willinsky & Rusk, 2019 ). Publishing is not free (though it does rely on unpaid labor and contributions), and as a result, open access publications must be supported financially. Financial and sustainability issues have forced many independent journal publications to sign deals with for-profit publishers, who manage and financially support the reviewing, editing, publishing, indexing, and marketing on behalf of the journal ( Fyfe et al., 2017 ). However, this support comes at the expense of control: in open access terms, this often means that the journal cannot always freely decide on how to make its content open access, if it is an option offered by the publisher at all ( Clarke, 2020 ).

Different open access publication models are often described with color terminology, though these terms are not always straightforward. For the purposes of this research, the publications studied fell into three primary categories. The first is diamond, also called platinum, which designates a journal where all articles are openly available, and the author does not pay any fees for publication. These journals are funded through other means – for many university presses, these costs are incorporated into a university’s budget ( Hudson Vitale & Ruttenberg, 2022 ). This model is considered to be the most equitable model for both readers and authors ( Meagher, 2021 ). Second is hybrid, or “pay to publish”, which is a dominant model among profit-driven publishers – in this model, a journal requires a subscription in order to access the full contents, but authors may choose to pay a publication fee to make their article openly available ( Piwowar et al., 2018 ). Thus, a hybrid journal will have a mix of articles that are open or closed to non-subscribers ( “Hybrid Open-Access Journal,” 2022 ). The third category is green OA – this is a broad set of criteria relating to the ability to store a version of the research article in a research repository, personal web site, or other approved website. Green OA is largely dictated by the journal and/or publisher – many publishers will only allow a prior version of an article, such as the author accepted manuscript rather than the published version of record and may impose an embargo period before this version of the research can be made publicly available ( Open Access Glossary , n.d. ).

Data on overall rates of open access publishing is imprecise, given the range of definitions and methods used to collect the data. A 2018 study estimated that, at a minimum, 28% of the scholarly literature published between 1950 and 2015 is OA with year-over-year data showing a steady increase including exponential growth beginning in 2000 ( Piwowar et al., 2018 ). However, open access growth varies by discipline, leaving CBR and service-learning research out of the analysis due to its interdisciplinary nature ( Maddi, 2020 ; Severin et al., 2020 ).

Discussions in the literature on why journals – or in the case of hybrid, individual authors – choose to publish open access tend to focus on scholarly impact and citation metrics, disciplinary norms, or the demographic characteristics of the authors ( Langham-Putrow et al., 2021 ; Piwowar et al., 2018 ; Severin et al., 2020 ; Zhu, 2017 ). However, some research has been devoted to why specific disciplines may have a stronger imperative to publish open access due to the needs of their audience(s) ( Wirsching et al., 2020 ).

Knowledge Sharing and Impact Assessment for Scholars and Community Partners

The results of campus-community scholarly endeavors matter to both parties, necessitating thoughtful communication and assessment strategies. Comprehensive program assessment is not straightforward and assessment tools that have been developed and honed over time tend to leave published scholarly work out of their scope of review. Building on early attempts at impactful measures focused on student learning, Portland State University developed a framework that is inclusive of students, the institution, faculty, and community ( Driscoll et al., 1998 ; Gelmon et al., 2018 ). While this expansion of review adds value to our understanding of community-engaged work, the continued absence of the distribution of information/knowledge as a specific outcome leaves a gap in our understanding if community partner information needs are being fulfilled. While researchers may see publication as primarily impacting academia, community and practitioner partners may feel excluded from the published results of the partnership, particularly when research is locked behind a subscription-based ‘paywall’.

The gap between scholarly publications and assessment of community and service-learning partnerships partly arises from a lack of attention, or articulation of the need, to share information. Additionally, institutional and academic research evaluation models also encourage the researcher to think of their impact in two entirely different contexts: one is how their research impacts community partners – which is often included as a measure of service – and an entirely separate context is the evaluation of the researcher’s scholarly impact. These evaluations are most commonly associated with promotion, tenure and/or rank (PRT), where scholarship and service are usually separated and evaluated using different scales and levels of expectation and reward. In fact, pre-tenured faculty interested in research methods that engage the community report facing pressure to delay such work in favor of more traditionally valued scholarship ( Changfoot, 2020 ). Even as engaged scholars have made headway in aligning institutional values of service and engagement to PRT policies, advocates see “a long way to go to fully align promotion and tenure policies to encourage and support scholarly outreach and engagement.” ( D. M. Doberneck, 2022, p. 15 ). Evaluation of scholarship, or “research impact”, has been traditionally dominated by bibliometrics, which are quantitative indicators based on citation counts designed to showcase ‘impact’ narrowly focusing on other academics as the sole impact audience ( Chin Roemer & Borchardt, 2015 ). The absence of non-scholarly audiences in scholarship evaluation is the operationalization of a value deficit where community impact is severely downplayed if not entirely absent from the traditional scholarly evaluation model. This separation of community impact and scholarly impact is clearly documented in advice for getting tenure for community-engaged scholars, who encourage researchers to publish “translated” research outputs, and separately recommend publishing in high-impact journals ( Morgridge Center for Public Service, n.d. ). Similarly, one of the most commonly-used rubrics for evaluating the institutionalization of service-learning, presented by Furco ( 1999 ), the rubric mentions promotion and tenure, but does not discuss publications as a measure of service-learning.

The scholarly evaluation process advocates and research translation advocates alike fail to fully acknowledge or assess the demand for access to published articles coming from the broader community. The community based research literature promotes alternative forms of information dissemination for community: community meetings, blog posts, op-eds, policy briefs, or even skits are recommended research outputs for meeting community information needs ( Hacker, 2013 ; Strand, 2003, p. 115 ). This “translation” of research is commonly assumed to be necessary to overcome a perceived language barrier to accessing publications. However, communities are diverse in their information needs and some describe the challenge as one of access and timing rather than intellectual accessibility. In Karen Hacker’s book chapter, Translating Research into Practice: View from Community , community partners like Alex Pirie expressed frustration with the time lag between data collection and publication/dissemination of results. ““The time delay between the conclusion of a research project and the publication of papers is always a problem. This is a period of time when, because of the constraints of journal publication, there is a virtual embargo on the results except in the most general way, and it drives the community side nuts. ‘Hey, we know this, we want to do something with/about it!’” Alex Pirie, Somerville, MA” ( 2013, p. 12 ). Similarly, when nursing home social workers were asked what academia could do to support their daily work, they asked that academic research not be kept behind a paywall ( Miller et al., 2022 ). This demonstrates an unmet need for access to scholarly research publications that translated outputs cannot meet. This unmet need may arise from considering community partners as a homogenous population, rather than separately considering the information needs of subgroups with more differentiated information needs, such as practitioners and other professionals. While translation materials can play an important role in meeting the diverse audiences of CBR where they are, researchers and journal editors should not assume an absence of interest in access to published scholarly work.

Given the assessment that open access movements and CBR scholars have shared values of information sharing with communities beyond the academy, and a commitment to mutual benefit for all parties, we wanted to examine the degree to which community-based research and service-learning journals are fulfilling these values. In particular, we assess the extent to which they are identifying practitioners and other community members as audiences, making their research openly available to these audiences, and assisting researchers in measuring their impact. To do this, a range of sources was analyzed to identify a corpus of journals in these fields, then collected information about them including the publisher, open access policy, and stated target audiences. Our results show that open access practices in service-learning and community-based research journals exceed the norm for scholarly publishing but is still not a standard expectation for journals in the field. Further, openness is aligned with community service and service-learning research values, but not always explicitly articulated or adopted by the fields. Finally, tools for scholars to assess their impact through these venues varies widely. We discuss why open access is vital to CBR and service-learning partnerships and suggest potential pathways to fully closing the loop between scholars and their community partners in ways that would ultimately benefit both, as well as the development of reward systems for researchers that would value open publishing as a community impact practice.

We started with identifying scholarly journals focused on community service or service-learning. This began by identifying a corpus of journals that fall within our parameters: an appropriate content focus, peer-reviewed, and actively publishing content. Two Campus Compact resources provided a total of 27 journals ( D. Doberneck, 2021 ; “Journal Section Comparison Table,” n.d. ). We added 11 community-based qualitative research journals from a book focused on the topic ( Johnson, 2017 ). Illinois State University offers its faculty and students a list of publication opportunities, largely affirming the Campus Compact list while giving us two additional titles to include ( 2022 ). A total of 6 journals were removed from our list due to being out of scope (1, not peer-reviewed) or no longer in active publication (5), giving us a total of 34 journals for our analysis. One publication was erroneously listed in Campus Compact as “Journal of Health Sciences and Extension” but is included in our study under its correct title, “Journal of Human Sciences and Extension”. For a complete list of journals included in the study, see Appendix A.

We identified categories of information we wanted to gather for each journal in order to learn more about the journal’s stated mission, scope, history, open access policy, available impact metrics, and how this information reflected the journal’s stated values, audience, and intentions.

For each publication we used a variety of sources to gather the information for the identified categories. We used each journals’ website when possible, gathering data on how the journal itself made the information available to readers and authors. Websites were used to collect information for: publisher, open access policy, targeted audience, targeted authors, article-level impact measures/metrics, any indications of policy change regarding openness of content when available, and any other relevant notes or content we discovered. To collect narrative data on intended authors and audience, we reviewed and collected relevant statements from the journal’s stated aims and scopes, missions, and journal introductions. In some cases, we also looked up the journal introduction found in volume 1, issue 1: where editors often expanded on who the journal was for and what it hoped to achieve. We gathered journal-level metrics from Scopus (CiteScore), Google Scholar Metrics (H5-index), and Cabell’s Publishing (acceptance rate). Date of first issue was pulled from Ulrichsweb Global Series Directory.

The resulting dataset was compiled and analyzed in an Excel spreadsheet. Most variables were easily observed on the journals’ website, including open access, publisher, and impact metrics. To establish author and reader intent, statements were copied from the “about us” or “aims and scope” sections of the websites and coded according to the themes that emerged: Mentions multi/interdisciplinary contributors, emphasis on methodology, by/for students, mentions practitioners or community partners, discipline specific scholars, and targets new or emerging scholars. Peer debriefing, pulling content from websites during a confined time period, and researchers’ expertise in scholarly communications were employed to aid in establishing credibility ( Anfara et al., 2002, p. 30 ). For several categories including metrics and open access status, criteria were established based on the authors’ expert analysis of the journal website information.

Open Access Status

Overall, the set of journals is predominantly open – the most common model is diamond, with a variety of university or society publishers hosting these titles, with 25/34 titles operating under this model ( Figure 1 ). The remaining nine titles were all considered to be hybrid titles, and all had various conditions set for green OA for ‘closed’ articles, or those published articles where authors do not pay to make their article open.

Figure 1 Dominance of Open Access Models.

We did not attempt to record the range of institutions hosting diamond titles, but grouped them together as “university presses”, which accounted for 71% of titles ( Figure 2 ). Most of these university presses are mostly considered to be small or medium-sized university presses. A total of 8 titles, or 23% of those analyzed, are published through a for-profit publisher: four titles are published by Sage, three titles published by Taylor & Francis, and one title is published by Wiley. Sage, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley are all “top five” for-profit publishers in terms of market share and profit ( Larivière et al., 2015 ). In addition to the for-profit titles, one non-profit title is published by Project MUSE, a journal subscription package owned by Johns Hopkins with over 700 individual journals, and one is published by a professional society.

Figure 2 Dominance of Journal Publishers or Content Hosts.

Journal Level Metrics

The overall rate of article level metrics for the journals was low. The most common metric was Google Scholar’s H5-index, which was available for 13 or 38% of the journals, followed by Scopus / Elsevier’s CiteScore, which was available for 11 or 32% of the journals, and we found acceptance rates for eight or 24% of the journals ( Figure 3 ).

Figure 3 Availability of Journal-Level Metrics.

15 of the 34 journals, 44%, did not have any of these metrics. The 11 journals indexed in Scopus were associated with a total of 12 separate subject classifications, with education the only subject appearing for more than two journals. The breakdown of subjects and individual titles in each classification are shown in Table 1 .

Prevalence of Journal Categories for Journals Indexed in Scopus

Article Level Metrics

Publicly-available article level metrics were available for 50% of the journals, with views (29%) and downloads (26%) being the most common of the available metrics ( Figure 4 ). Two vendors that collate various sources of altmetrics, Altmetric and PlumX, were available for four (12%) and three (9%) of the journals respectively. Citations, available for seven (21%) of the journals, came from different sources, such as CrossRef. The lack of altmetrics standardization between journals appears to be a result of the variety of publishers, who use a diversity of open access platforms to host content, that likely drove the availability of these metrics. More careful analysis of hosting platforms would be needed to verify this observation, but was outside the scope of this study.

Figure 4 Availability of Article-Level Metrics.

Targeted Authors and Audience

For each journal included in the study, we pulled language from their website that indicated their intended contributors and audiences. While there is no standardized place for this information, “about us,” “aims and scope,” or mission/vision statements were common sources. In some cases, authorship criteria or peer review standards illuminated explicit intent to include community partners or practitioners as both contributors and readers. For example, the Journal of STEM Outreach describes itself as “a bridge between the STEM and education world,” demonstrating a desire for academic and practitioner readership, and the Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies seeks “interdisciplinary contributions from both scholars and practitioners worldwide,” indicating a desire for authors from many disciplines, community partners, with a global audience. Practitioners and community partners are more likely to be identified as readers than contributors, with 14 of the journals mentioning this group as either co-authors or potential contributors and 26 identifying them as beneficiaries of the content. Nine journals have at least a partial focus on advancing CBR methodology. Two of these, however, stand out in their commitment to including community partners through all aspects of the research process. Both Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research Education and Action and Gateways: International Journal of Community Engagement and Research encourage the voices of community leaders as contributors and co-authors, and they also include them in their pool of peer reviewers. Two others from our sample – Collaborations: A Journal of Community-Based Research and Practice and Engage! Co-Created Knowledge join in this practice, for a total of four journals with peer reviewers outside of traditional academic institutions.

While the review sought to understand the roles faculty researchers and community partners played in the production of, and audience for, the research, other groups emerged as an intentional focus. Six of the journals target students, and five explicitly mentioned emerging scholars. In some cases, this took the form of a dedicated section of journal contents, while other journals instead encouraged co-authorship. This holistic approach breaks down not only town-gown barriers but acknowledges every member of the research and learning process of the value their voice brings to the table.

The journals selected for this study have OA practices that far exceed the norm for academic publishing. This shows consistency between the reciprocity values of CBR and the publishing practices of journals devoted to publishing the scholarly outputs of scholar-community relations. While overall values alignment is strong, a few exceptions stand out when comparing the target author and audience analysis to publishing practice. One of the journals that recommends the inclusion of community partners as authors publishes on a hybrid/green model. Similarly, 19% of journals that encourage community readership are hybrid rather than diamond.

If community engagement in authorship and readership cannot fully predict diamond open access status, it is worth considering other factors such as timing and publishing platforms. Severin, et al. note three distinct phases of OA, arcing from formation in the 1990s to transformation from the early 2000s to the mid-2010s, to stabilization running through the present ( 2020 ). The mean start date for the journals under review was 2004. Indeed, some older publications show a transition to OA in keeping with the times, having come to life under traditional subscription models. This can be seen with Journal of Extension ( 1963 ) where the inaugural volume was sponsored by a university consortium with the expectations that subscription fees would cover the cost moving forward, and Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning (1994) which initially funded itself through subscriber fees with content openly available after a six month embargo, shifting to a fully open access model with Volume 23 Number 1 in 2017 ( Ferguson & Carter Jr., 1963 ; Howard, 2017 ).

A bigger factor currently, however, seems to be the nature of the publisher. We saw near-perfect alignment between open access status and publishing model – all of the journals published with a for-profit publisher are hybrid/green publications, as well as Project MUSE, which is published by a university press, Johns Hopkins, but operates more like a traditional content publisher due to the size of Project MUSE’s journal portfolio. Thus, we classified Project MUSE separately as a non-profit publisher, distinct from the for-profit and other university press publications. Conversely, all titles published by a university press are diamond publications. These two results show that OA practices are influenced by both date of journal establishment as well as publisher.

Both journal-level and article-level metrics are somewhat limited for the set of journals used in this study. Ultimately, this limits the extent to which researchers publishing in these publications can demonstrate how their research publications are impacting scholarly and other intended audiences, however it does underline the importance for community-based researchers to demonstrate research impact in a way that is often distinct from other, more traditional approaches to impact, such as the use of journal-level metrics. While we see some impact frameworks for CBR and service-learning research, they largely bypass the role of metrics, as well as that of impact audiences. A robust set of metrics of measures allows researchers to more fully craft their impact story – which audiences benefited from their research, and in what context. For these researchers, their story will also include qualitative measures that are appropriate to their community partners – surveys and other assessment measures, as well as documentation of ways in which research results are appropriately shared with these partners. As discussed, this may include publication in fully open access venues with journals whose stated scope and audience are aligned as well as other ‘translated’ outputs that are tailored to individual community partners or other audiences such as practitioners, a broader community, or the general public.

We began our investigation looking for open access publishing as a way for the academy to meet its obligations of inclusiveness to their community partners. Reciprocity, however, also includes the need for researchers to meet their scholarly goals. While these publications are largely open to the community, they could improve their impact on the scholar’s career by enhancing available metrics, allowing the scholar to better make the case of the value of CBR scholarship.

It is tricky to draw definite conclusions from studying the target author and audience. While some journals do see community members as playing a more active role in the publication process, as discussed in the results, it is likely that other journals see community members primarily as readers rather than as contributors. In that context, the content of the journals may contain messaging more closely aligned with this audience than the journal’s website, which we hypothesize is catered more toward potential authors. Furthermore, it is likely that there are private formal or informal policies in place in journals related to how and to what degree community plays a role in the journal, making our findings incomplete. However, clearly communicating those intentions on the website would help increase transparency and give those community members greater understanding of the role they play.

Limitations

Defining the set of journals proved challenging – some of the journals on this list are more squarely focused on community-based research or service-learning, while others are larger journals who regularly publish research that cover these two topics, often within a disciplinary mindset, as Table 1 shows. However, focusing more narrowly on the most highly relevant journals, or expanding our set to include other journals whose scopes are inclusive of community-based research or service-learning perspectives, would likely have altered many of our findings: as we noticed with many of the non-diamond journals falling into the latter, larger category of journals. More work to define this set of journals is still needed, given the disparity we encountered in the lists we used to construct our set.

We were also limited in the information we were able to collect. For example, some journals offer authors the ability to log in to their journal’s system, at which point additional article-level metrics may have been made available. Policies or other types of information are likewise not always obvious or made publicly available on the journal’s website, or may not have been available at the time of our study as journal websites are updated. Our research took place over the course of a few months, so we were able to observe some “real-time” updates, such as a journal ceasing publication while still remaining on a recommended list, however, we did not have definitive historical access to shifting policies, changes in scope, etc. This limits our ability to measure the scope or rate of changes we observed in a more meaningful way than chance observation.

Recommendations and Future Research

Recommendations for journals, editorial boards, and journal editors.

Altmetrics can assist researchers in demonstrating the attention, engagement, and impact of their research. However, 50% of the titles examined do not seemingly offer any article-level metrics, which limits this impact demonstration. Journals should consider adopting practices that are beneficial for their authors, including a diamond OA model, and adoption and incorporation of a variety of metrics to assist its authors in demonstrating their impact.

It is unlikely, however, that Wiley, Sage, Taylor & Francis, and Project MUSE will adopt a diamond OA model in the near future. Project MUSE will debut a “Subscribe to Open” model of OA support for some of its titles beginning in 2025, but for the three for-profit publishers, it is likely that all three will continue relying on the hybrid publication model as their dominant revenue model unless external forces necessitate a shift to an alternate source of funding and support ( Project MUSE , n.d. ). Therefore, any possibility for many remaining non-diamond titles to adopt equitable OA models is uncertain as long as these publishers continue to own and operate these publications.

Journals could more carefully consider adopting practices that account for the role of the community in the journal process, particularly if they see a role for community members in the publication process. We likewise recommend that the role of community members be clearly articulated on the journal’s website, and ideally, also mentioned in their mission and scope.

Recommendations for Authors

Authors should consider the availability and impact of their research when deciding where to publish and prepare a dissemination strategy for both scholarly and community audiences that is timely and accessible. They should also ask about ways hybrid journals in this field can work toward diamond open access to reach and impact their stated or presumed broader, non-scholarly audiences; in the hopes that community pressure can bring about positive change for these journals and further align disciplinary values with publication outlets.

Recommendations for the Fields of Community-Based Research and Service-Learning

Models for measuring impact in these fields could be revised to explicitly endorse and prioritize open access publications as a high impact practice. For example, the Furco model rubric’s highest level of institutional achievement, “Sustained Institutionalization”, would be enhanced by inclusion of open access publications as a pathway toward reward for service-learning scholars beyond the more generic goal of “recognition”, which further disincentives these faculty to prioritize open access rather than “high impact” when choosing a publication outlet ( 1999 ).

Updated impact models could include distinct impact audiences, relevant measures, ways to demonstrate appropriate outreach to audiences, and evidence of how research is impacting these audiences, including publishing in a journal that actively considers the role of one or more of these groups in their publishing and/or readership. These impact audiences include the broader community: including specific subgroups such as practitioners, and community members, as well as the general public. This kind of approach to defining and outlining measures is already happening elsewhere in academia; two notable examples are the Becker Model, which defines five distinct areas of impact for biomedical research, and the ACRL Framework for Impactful Scholarship and Metrics, which outlines ways for academic librarians to document scholarly and practitioner impact of their scholarship ( Bernard Becker Medical Library, 2018 ; Borchardt et al., 2020 ). In addition to establishing impact frameworks, researchers may also consider using the newly-created Researcher Impact Framework, which is designed to support researchers in defining and evaluating impact audiences ( De Moura Rocha Lima & Bowman, 2022 ). A dissemination strategy and gathering of relevant metrics can then be incorporated into the full description of scholarly and non-scholarly impact of the research.

Recommendations for Evaluators of Community-Based and Service-Learning Research

Further support for this approach to impact documentation can and should be added to PRT guidance for institutions that prioritize community-based research or service-learning. This strategy can likewise be adopted by grant funders to assist in the evaluation of grant proposals and resulting impact of funded research. Professional organizations and societies with close ties to community-based research and service-learning should consider describing and endorsing a full range of measures and metrics to demonstrate impact of this research.

Further Research

We see several avenues for further research, such as working with journals in our list that have ceased open access publication in order to examine and even help resolve sustainability issues. Alternately, working with editors of hybrid journal publications to better understand the factors that may help encourage a move to a fully open access model, in partnership with individuals associated with journals who have already made such a move. Surveying community-based research scholars would help to better clarify the role and value of open access and different metrics for these scholars when making strategic publication decisions, and how these decisions may differ based on type of appointment, such as tenure-track vs. non-tenure-track. On the other hand, surveying community members would help to understand how they interact with journal content, and where they see gaps in communication, partnership, or availability of research, and if there are differences in opinion between different types of community members. We hope that this publication will encourage creation of a more holistic impact model for community-based research and service-learning that acknowledges open access publications as a form of community impact and establishes community impact as a value and goal for research and researchers operating under a scholarly impact-dominant model of evaluation. Finally, we see an avenue for future research that elucidates the specific information needs of different population groups such as practitioners that are commonly seen as community partners, in order to better understand when and how information can be provided to these partners that fully satisfy their respective needs.

Community-based research and service-learning aim to bring research out of the ivory tower and positively impact community partners. Making research publications openly available for use by community partners, or specific subgroups of partners such as practitioners, has not been commonly identified as a best practice or assessment standard for evaluating the success of these research partnerships, and may constitute a lack of understanding between the academic and community researchers. This study determined that, while the majority of journals that publish research in these fields are fully open access, there is room for improvement to fully integrate and incentivize open access publications for academic researchers. These researchers would also benefit from being able to access robust altmetrics in order to demonstrate non-scholarly engagement with their research, and this effort could also be meaningfully supported through revised evaluation guidelines. Researchers in this field could consider discussing open access support for publications that are not already fully open access in order to try to fully align these journals’ values with their stated non-scholarly audiences.

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Olivia Ivey , MSSW, MLS, is an associate librarian supporting research, teaching, and learning in American University’s School of Public Affairs. She has previously worked in the law library and the U.S. Department of Labor. Prior to her library career, she worked as a program director at a senior center in New York City. Her research interests center on the practical application of information literacy, including research skills and implementation in community settings.

Rachel Borchardt , MLIS, is the Scholarly Communications Librarian at American University in Washington, DC. Rachel previously worked as the Science Librarian at American, as well as the Biology and Neuroscience and Behavior Biology Librarian at Emory University. In her current job, Rachel supports open access, open education resources, and research impact initiatives through the library. Her scholarly interests concern equitable models for research production and evaluation, including diverse models for measuring and rewarding non-scholarly impact and translated research outputs.

Journals Included for Review

Action Research Journal

Anthropology & Education Quarterly

Collaborations: A Journal of Community-Based Research and Practice

Community Health Equity Research & Policy

Engage! Co-Created Knowledge

Engaged Scholar Journal: Community Engaged Research, Teaching and Learning

Ethnography & Education

Gateways: International Journal of Community Engagement and Research

Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies

International Journal of Service Learning in Engineering

International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IJRSLCE)

International Journal of Science Education, Part B: Communication & Public Engagement

International Journal of Service-Learning in Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship

Journal of Community Engagement & Scholarship

Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education

Journal of Community Informatics

Journal of Community Practice

Journal of Deliberative Democracy

Journal of Experiential Education

Journal of Extension

Journal of Health Sciences and Extension

Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

Journal of Participatory Research Methods

Journal of STEM Outreach

Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning

Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action

Public: A Journal of Imagining America

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

Qualitative Inquiry

Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric

Research for All

Science Education & Civic Engagement

The Journal of Service-Learning in Higher Education

Undergraduate Journal of Service-Learning and Community-Based Research

Harvard-Style Citation

Ivey, O & Borchardt, R. (2024) 'Open access for community partners, impactful outputs for scholars: Leveraging scholarly communication movements to enhance reciprocity in community based research', Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning . 30(1) doi: 10.3998/mjcsl.3682

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Vancouver-Style Citation

Ivey, O & Borchardt, R. Open access for community partners, impactful outputs for scholars: Leveraging scholarly communication movements to enhance reciprocity in community based research. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning. 2024 4; 30(1) doi: 10.3998/mjcsl.3682

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APA-Style Citation

Ivey, O & Borchardt, R. (2024, 4 26). Open access for community partners, impactful outputs for scholars: Leveraging scholarly communication movements to enhance reciprocity in community based research. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 30(1) doi: 10.3998/mjcsl.3682

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Advance in forensic fingerprint research provides new hope for cold cases

by Meg Cox, Loughborough University

Researchers have unveiled a method capable of detecting drug substances from fingerprints lifted from crime scenes, which could provide fresh insights into unsolved cases. The research is published in the journal Drug Testing and Analysis .

Analytical scientists from Loughborough University have demonstrated for the first time that drug residue—namely the fast-acting sleeping pill Zolpidem, which has been linked to drug-facilitated sexual assault and drink spiking —can be detected on gel-lifted fingerprints.

Dr. Jim Reynolds and Dr. Ayoung Kim say the breakthrough could shed new light on cold cases and unsolved crimes as forensic gel lifters—which transfer prints onto a gelatin surface—are used globally by scenes of crimes officers to preserve and visualize fingerprints.

"This is the first time that analysis of gel-lifted prints for a drug substance has been accomplished, and shows that lifted prints and other forensic marks can be interrogated for useful information," says Dr. Reynolds, the research lead.

"Since gel-lifted prints and marks can be stored for many years, the technique could be of real use in cold cases where additional information may prove useful to either link or exonerate a suspect to the investigation. Working with police forces and applying the method to cold case samples could help bring criminals to justice who may have thought they have got away with it."

A number of tests exist to detect drugs directly from fingerprints, but these face limitations. They can be destructive to the fingerprint, degrade drug residues, and be affected by environmental interferences.

It has long been speculated that gel-lifted prints contain valuable chemical information and could offer more accurate drug detection.

However, traditional techniques used to analyze the chemicals present in a sample have previously not been suitable for gel lifters. This is because they detect all chemicals present, including those that make up the gel, making it difficult to identify specific substances.

The method used by Dr. Reynolds and Dr. Kim, called sfPESI-MS, overcomes this issue using a rapid separation mechanism that distinguishes the drug substance from the background of the gel.

The process involves sampling the chemicals from the gel lifters into tiny liquid droplets. The chemicals extracted into the droplets are then ionized, which means they gain or lose electric charge depending on their chemical properties. The drug substance chemicals are more surface active than the chemicals originating from the gel, which enables them to be separated from the mixture.

This separation method enables the direct detection of a drug substance using mass spectrometry , a technique that identifies chemicals by measuring their molecular weight. The researchers have successfully tested the technique using Zolpidem-laced fingerprints lifted from glass, metal, and paper surfaces in a laboratory setting.

They now hope to work with police forces to analyze stored gel-lifted prints and use the method to identify other substances.

Dr. Reynolds said, "Zolpidem was the focus of our research, but the method could just as easily be applied to other drug substances a person may have been handling and could be applied to other chemicals such as explosives, gunshot residues, paints, and dyes.

"By linking chemical information to the fingerprint, we can identify the individual and link to the handling of an illicit substance which may prove useful in a prosecution. This could be useful to detect individuals who have been spiking drinks; for example, if the drug they are using gets onto their fingertips, then they will leave evidence at the scene."

Dr. Kim, who is the first author of the paper and completed the research as part of her Ph.D. at Loughborough, added, "We would like to apply our method to real samples from criminal investigations; it would be good to know my Ph.D. research has helped bring criminals to justice."

Journal information: Drug Testing and Analysis

Provided by Loughborough University

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