Annotated Bibliography

Post ID: 3400084

Overview

Annotated Bibliography

Sociology of Sport

DUE WEDNESDAY JUNE 11^TH 2025 BY 11:59PM – Upload to AVE

Upload your assignment to AVE, in the Assignments folder. Include your last name in your document filename. Failure to include your last name in the file will result in a deduction of 5%. Submit Word documents only (no PDF). NO ChatGPT GENERATED REPORTS ARE PERMITTED. A GRADE OF ZERO WILL BE AWARD IF YOU DO, AND THE OFFICE OF ACADEMIC INTEGRITY WILL BE INFORMAED OF YOUR TRANSGRESSION.

A bibliography is a list of sources (books, journals, Web sites, periodicals, etc.,) one has used for researching a topic. Bibliographies are sometimes called "References" or "Works Cited" depending on the style format you are using. A bibliography usually just includes the bibliographic information (i.e., the author, title, publisher, etc.).

An annotation is a summary and/or evaluation of the sources you would use in a term paper or report and helps you to keep track of your sources efficiently.

The Process (how-to)

Writing an annotated bibliography is easier than you think. Here are 4 easy steps to help you accomplish your task:

1. Literature search – find materials (peer-reviewed books and journal articles) that are relevant to your subject/topic. Figure out where to look for them. If you are struggling with finding resources, contact a librarian – they are extremely helpful in aiding students in projects such as this. I usually start with Sociological Abstracts and Web of Science, but sometimes I do a Google Scholar search for a quick, preliminary search to determine if there is a robust body of literature on my topic.

2. Review and examine—before you commit to a source, briefly examine and review the document; read the abstract/summary and look at the conclusion and findings section to see if source will be useful – i.e., the paper is relevant to your topic. Also, determine if sources meet the requirements of the assignment (see below).

3. Cite—cite the book, article, or document using the appropriate style – for this assignment APA only. APA Research Guides McMaster: https://libguides.mcmaster.ca/APA

4. Annotation—write your concise annotation. This should include a summary and an evaluation of the article. The hardest part of this assignment is writing the annotation, but knowing what it entails can make this task less daunting. (An annotated bibliography is a bibliography (a list of books or other works) that includes descriptive and evaluative comments about the sources cited in your paper. These comments are also known as annotations.)

For this assignment you are to evaluate 6 peer-reviewed articles on a sport related topic of your choice. You may come up with your own topic or pick one from the list of suggestions posted on AVE (if you are having difficulties settling on a topic). All of your articles must be sociological in approach.

If your topic is a contemporary concern (e.g., gender verification in sport), your references should be from within the last 10 years. This is to ensure that you have the most up-to-date research on your topic. However, you may have chosen a topic that is no longer popular, or you are interested in a topic that was an academic concern during a particular historical moment. If this is the case, you need to include a statement explaining why your reference(s) is/are older than 10 years. One important caveat – it is okay to include an older article(s) if the article(s) is “seminal” (i.e., ground-breaking) and continues to inform current research on the topic. For example, Dunning’s work on soccer hooliganism is from 2000 and is considered “older”, but it is an important work on soccer hooliganism and sport violence.

Presentation: Your annotated bibliography must include the following information and organization for every citation. Each number represents a separate section/paragraph:

An introductory paragraph offering details about your research topic and what aspect of the topic you are focusing on – e.g., gender verification policies and the cultural beliefs and assumptions that underlie them - and why you are interested in this topic. This statement is similar to a research or thesis statement and is the central idea and link between all of your references. You do not need to have an introductory paragraph for each article.

a summary of the article, including the research focus and thesis statement, and how the article is related to your research topic
identify the research method(s) or “tools” used to conduct the study (e.g., questionnaires, interviews, textual analysis, etc.,) and methodology (e.g., theoretical approach, ethnography, ethnomethodology, etc.,) utilized in each of the articles* (see below for an explanation.)
a discussion of the article’s main findings and/or conclusions
the relevance of the source – does it address a gap in the literature, is it an application of a theoretical approach, is it part of an ongoing debate?
limitations or omissions of the study/article

Common Errors

Many students commit the following errors when they write annotated bibliographies.

Incorrect citation (missing punctuation, incorrect spacing, missing information, etc.) Make sure you follow the citation guides exactly as they are written. Double and triple check for missing periods and commas, author names, dates, and spacing.

Not using “hanging” indent for citations – see example below. A hanging indent is when all lines EXCEPT FOR THE FIRST line are indented.
Too many direct quotes and incorrect paraphrasing
Remember, the purpose of annotations is to write a summary in your own words.
Make sure that your interpretation or your paraphrasing is correct—often students convolute the intended meaning of something written by someone else. Take the time to understand the author’s point, perspective, and statement before you paraphrase it.

Paper appearance

Your annotated bibliography may vary in length depending on the sources you examine (approximately 6-8 pages in length, not including the cover page – this is only a guideline) however, for every article, you will always include a full citation, a short summary, and an evaluation of the source.

Single spaced
1” margins – do not make larger or smaller
12pt font – do not make larger or smaller – New Times Roman or something similar – nothing weird
Full Citation (author(s), date, title of article or chapter, journal, issue no., volume no., page numbers). Only include the DOI if the journal is an online journal only. DO NOT include Mac library links
written in APA citation style
HANGING INDENT and Bolded title
Spaces (single hard return) between paragraphs – easier for the marker to read
Run your spell & grammar check! You will lose marks for spelling errors & poor grammar

Cover page

Name
Student no.
Title of paper – especially important
Course name & number
Document format – WORD ONLY
FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN A LOSS OF MARKS

Example using APA – how your annotation should look – author’s name(s), title of the article and source information (journal, volume, issue, etc.,) are bolded; the rest of the text is not.

Atencio, M., & Wright, J. (2008). “We Be Killin’ Them”: Hierarchies of Black Masculinity in Urban Basketball Spaces. Sociology of Sport Journal, 25(2), 263–280.

By examining basketball culture in local parks, this article delineates how Black masculinities develop through “discursive practices.” It argues that male power is authorized by the community placing precedence on basketball, which causes the subsequent hierarchical allocation of Black masculinities at parks. This article relates to my research topic as it examines how the performance of Black masculinity grants access to social capital within their community. Through basketball, young Black men could achieve higher status by exhibiting athletic prowess. Their ascendant masculinity would determine their access to certain parks and enable them to dictate expected behaviour.

This research employs an ethnographic study, using data gathered through qualitative methods such as conducting interviews with participants recruited from the local community, as well as observations and videotaping. Underpinning the methodology is a post-structural theoretical approach and the application of social geography theories.

The study concludes that basketball existed as a mechanism of creating spaces of meaning and value in young Black men’s lives where they had been denied social and educational opportunities due to poverty. It found that young men who participated in the study did desire to engage in hierarchical masculinities and tried to sustain their dominant status through their usage of basketball parks. However, the research also illustrated that basketball allowed them to explore more diverse notions of masculinity, challenging the monolithic view of young urbanized Black men as solely desiring to become star athletes. Subjects of the study considered basketball as a medium to pursue pathways that were not inherently related to becoming professional athletes.

The limitation of this ethnographic study is that it is confined to a specific spatial context, therefore the research results might not be completely applicable to the aggregate level. Thus, more longitudinal studies are required. However, its qualitative methods allow for rich data sets on how its subject's identities were constituted. Although the study is slightly outdated, the data is relevant as rather than focusing on how black masculinity is constructed through the white gaze, it takes a unique intra-racial approach to how the performance of Black masculinity proliferates at the micro-level.

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*Methods are tools used to select a research technique and are applied during the early stage of the research study. They include interviews, surveys, questionnaires, focus groups, oral histories, participant observation, textual and content analysis, probability sampling, etc... and are applied during the initial stages of the research process.

Methodologies are the research strategies that outline how the research was conducted. It includes explanations of what the data consists of, how it was collected, organized, and analyzed (the choices that researchers make in order to conduct their study). It involves the researchers accounting of how they conducted their research. In sociology the theoretical perspective (if utilized) is also an important part of the methodology as it is the lens through which researchers interpret and explain what they think is happening. Examples include phenomenology, ethnography, ethnomethodology, dramaturgy, grounded theory, feminism, Marxism, symbolic interactionism, postmodernism, etc.

If the article does not identify a research methodology or method, mention this in your annotation.