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Generic structures have been developed for longer genres such as reports (Marshall 1991), book reviews (Hyland 2000) and specific parts and types of articles (Brett 1994) but so far, many shorter genres such as the annotated bibliography (AB) have not been examined. This study reviews four examples of professional ABs, and on the basis of these, establishes a list of potential features of this genre. We use this list to evaluate student ABs. Our results show that students, as emerging members of their professional communities, have an understanding of the conventional structure of ABs, but that they tend to generalise and overextend the most marked and variable features of the genre.