Is 3 days enough for a 15-entry annotated bibliography?

Yes, three days can be enough to pull together a solid 15‑entry annotated bibliography, but you’ll have to treat it as a sprint rather than a leisurely walk. On average you’ll need roughly 45 minutes to locate a source, skim the most relevant sections, and write a 150‑word annotation, which adds up to about eleven or twelve hours of focused work. If you can carve out two solid blocks of three to four hours each day—perhaps early in the morning before the lab and a quiet evening after your experiments—you’ll stay within the time frame. The key is to limit the scope of each annotation to what matters for your literature review: a brief summary of the main argument, the methodology, and a sentence or two on how it will support or challenge your own research question. Don’t get sidetracked by trying to critique every nuance; you can always expand later if needed. Imagine a first‑year student who spends four hours in the lab each day and squeezes in a two‑hour “research slot” before dinner. In the first slot they quickly compile a list of fifteen relevant articles using the university’s database, saving each PDF in a dedicated folder. In the second slot they read the abstract, introduction, and conclusion of each paper, jotting down bullet points in a Word document. By the third day they turn those notes into concise annotations, copy‑pasting the citation in the required style and polishing the prose. As they work, they keep a running checklist of which sources are still missing and which annotations need a final read‑through, so nothing falls through the cracks. A practical way to keep momentum is to set a mini‑deadline for each day—say, five finished annotations by the end of day one, another five by day two, and the final five plus a quick proofread on day three. Pair that with a simple template: citation, one‑sentence summary, one‑sentence method note, and one‑sentence relevance comment. If you hit a snag with a particular source, skip it temporarily and move on; you can always circle back with fresh eyes. By breaking the task into bite‑size chunks, staying disciplined about your time blocks, and focusing on the essential elements of each annotation, you’ll meet the deadline without burning out. You’ll have a usable bibliography ready to feed straight into your literature review chapter.