PAE Professional Academic EnglishChapter 06
Research · Chapter 06

The annotated
bibliography.

A reference list says you read it. An annotation proves you understood it, and hands you a first draft already half-written.

Matthew Clement · Careercomms.comWorkbook pages 26 to 27
PAE Professional Academic EnglishCh 06 · Why this matters

It's not busywork. It's your draft.

Every annotation you write now is a paragraph you don't write blank later. The thinking, what the source says, whether to trust it, where it fits, is done in the margins, while the source is fresh.

Skip it, and you re-read four sources the night before the essay, having understood none of them twice.

Practitioner's habit

Write the annotation the day you read the source, not the night before it's due. Your memory is not the tool you think it is.

Part one

Four moves
per entry.

Five to eight sentences for every source, doing four jobs in order. Learn the moves once; they never change, only the citation wrapper does.

Workbook · Chapter 06Page 26
PAE Professional Academic EnglishCh 6.1 · The four moves

Summarise · assess · fit · quote.

Summarise

What does it actually argue or report, in your own words?

Assess

How reliable, and what kind of source? Record its CRAAP score (__ / 25) here.

Fit

Which paragraph does it serve? Which counter-claim does it answer?

Quote

One short phrase or statistic you'll use, with a page reference.

PAE Professional Academic EnglishCh 6.4 · A worked entry · STEM IEEE

One real entry, four moves.

[1] J. Park, H. Lee, and S. Kim, “Solid-state electrolytes for high-density lithium batteries: A review,” J. Power Sources, vol. 588, Art. no. 233742, 2024.

Summarise

Surveys 2019–2024 solid-electrolyte work; concludes interfacial resistance, not conductivity, is now the limiting factor.

Assess

Peer-reviewed; leading energy venue; 180+ refs. CRAAP 23 / 25.

Fit

Backs Section III, Korea's lead is assembly-side and exposed at the materials interface. Rebuts “conductivity is solved.”

Quote

“The bottleneck has migrated from the bulk to the boundary” [1, p. 5].

PAE Professional Academic EnglishCh 6.3 · Weak vs strong

Easy to name. Easy to fake.

Weak

“This article is about K-pop and AI. It is interesting and has useful information. It will help my essay because it is also about Korea.”

Strong

“Jin (2022) argues Hallyu's fourth phase is platform-infrastructural, not content-led. Peer-reviewed; fifteen-year track record. Anchors paragraph three; rebuts the ‘BTS-as-exception’ objection.”

The weak version names a topic and a feeling. The strong one names an argument, a judgement of reliability, and a place in the essay, three of the four moves in three sentences.

Talk about it · 5 minutes

Take the best source you've found so far. Walk a partner through its four moves.

  • →  In one sentence, what does it actually argue?
  • →  What's its rough CRAAP score out of 25?
  • →  Which paragraph of your essay will it serve?
PAE Professional Academic EnglishCh 6.4 · One habit, two wrappers

The moves don't change. The wrapper does.

HASS  BIZ  APA 7

Citation first, hanging indent; annotation as an indented block. In-text (Jin, 2022).

STEM  IEEE

Numbered citation, flush-left block. In-text [1]. Same four moves underneath.

Writing about literature?

Use MLA instead, author-page in text, a Works Cited list. Same four moves; full comparison in Workbook §11.4.

Part two

Now you
try it.

Write one full annotation, then audit your stack against the six sources the essay needs.

Workbook · Chapter 06Page 27 · Exercises 6.1 to 6.2
PAE Professional Academic EnglishIn class · Exercise
EX. 06.1

Write a full annotation

Write · 20 min

Take a source you've already read. Hit all four moves, in your discipline's style.

  1. Citation, correctly formatted (APA, IEEE, or MLA)
  2. Summary + Assessment, with its CRAAP score / 25
  3. Fit + one pull-quote with a page reference
Pair check

Read your partner only the Fit line. Can they tell which paragraph it serves, and what it argues against?

PAE Professional Academic EnglishIn class · Exercise
EX. 06.2

Inventory check

Audit · 6 min

The essay needs at least six sources. List what you have and find the gaps.

SourceKind of evidenceCRAAP / 25Annotated?
   ☐
   ☐
   ☐
Find the gap

All statistics and no interpretation? A one-legged stack. Note which kind of evidence you're still missing.

PAE Professional Academic EnglishChapter 06 · Recap

The chapter in one slide.

  • A list says you read it; an annotation proves you understood it
  • Four moves: summarise, assess, fit, quote
  • Record each source's CRAAP score (__ / 25) in the assessment
  • Strong entries name an argument, a judgement, and a place
  • The moves are identical in APA, IEEE, and MLA
  • Write it the day you read it; it's your first draft
In the workbook

Chapter 06, pages 26 to 27, including both worked entries (APA & IEEE) and the four-annotation builder with a CRAAP-score box. Annotated bibliography is due Week 03.

Read with a pen.

Chapter 06 · Next, turning your sources into a thesis