Scholarship is a conversation. To effectively be a part of that conversation, you must evaluate your sources, integrate the information, and give credit to the original contributors.
Evaluating Your Sources
You must always think critically about the information you come in contact with. For every kind of source, you should always determine the source's credibility and relevancy to your research. There are many factors to consider. To start, think about the source's:
Integrating Your Sources
To effectively make an argument for your research, you must use information from a credible author. There are three ways of doing this and all three require citing your sources.
Citing Your Sources
To cite your sources in Chicago Manual of Style, check out this guide:
https://libguides.csuchico.edu/citingsources-chicago
Annotated Bibliographies
A bibliography is an organized list of sources (journal articles, books, government documents, websites, etc.) on a specific subject area. Citations in this organized list include the bibliographic information of each source, such as the author, title, and publication information.
An annotation is a note, explanation, or commentary added to a text, image, or other data.
An annotated bibliography is similar to a bibliography, with the difference being that each citation entry includes a brief description and/or assessment of the cited source - an annotation. Annotations are short paragraphs which are usually between 150 and 200 words, however, depending on your purpose they may be substantially longer.
An annotated bibliography can serve the following purposes:
For examples of annotated bibliographies in APA, MLA, and Chicago style, see Annotated Bibliography Samples at the Online Writing Lab by Purdue University.