in an annotated bibliography each bibliographic reference should include

How to Write an Annotated Bibliography - APA Style (7th Edition)

What is an annotation, how is an annotation different from an abstract, what is an annotated bibliography, types of annotated bibliographies, descriptive or informative, analytical or critical, to get started.

An annotation is more than just a brief summary of an article, book, website, or other type of publication. An annotation should give enough information to make a reader decide whether to read the complete work. In other words, if the reader were exploring the same topic as you, is this material useful and if so, why?

While an abstract also summarizes an article, book, website, or other type of publication, it is purely descriptive. Although annotations can be descriptive, they also include distinctive features about an item. Annotations can be evaluative and critical as we will see when we look at the two major types of annotations.

An annotated bibliography is an organized list of sources (like a reference list). It differs from a straightforward bibliography in that each reference is followed by a paragraph length annotation, usually 100–200 words in length.

Depending on the assignment, an annotated bibliography might have different purposes:

• Provide a literature review on a particular subject
• Help to formulate a thesis on a subject
• Demonstrate the research you have performed on a particular subject
• Provide examples of major sources of information available on a topic
• Describe items that other researchers may find of interest on a topic

There are two major types of annotated bibliographies:

A descriptive or informative annotated bibliography describes or summarizes a source as does an abstract; it describes why the source is useful for researching a particular topic or question and its distinctive features. In addition, it describes the author's main arguments and conclusions without evaluating what the author says or concludes.

For example:

McKinnon, A. (2019). Lessons learned in year one of business.  Journal of Legal Nurse Consulting ,  30 (4), 26–28. This article describes some of the difficulties many nurses experience when transitioning from nursing to a legal nurse consulting business. Pointing out issues of work-life balance, as well as the differences of working for someone else versus working for yourself, the author offers their personal experience as a learning tool. The process of becoming an entrepreneur is not often discussed in relation to nursing, and rarely delves into only the first year of starting a new business. Time management, maintaining an existing job, decision-making, and knowing yourself in order to market yourself are discussed with some detail. The author goes on to describe how important both the nursing professional community will be to a new business, and the importance of mentorship as both the mentee and mentor in individual success that can be found through professional connections. The article’s focus on practical advice for nurses seeking to start their own business does not detract from the advice about universal struggles of entrepreneurship makes this an article of interest to a wide-ranging audience.

An analytical or critical annotation not only summarizes the material, it analyzes what is being said. It examines the strengths and weaknesses of what is presented as well as describing the applicability of the author's conclusions to the research being conducted.

Analytical or critical annotations will most likely be required when writing for a college-level course.

McKinnon, A. (2019). Lessons learned in year one of business.  Journal of Legal Nurse Consulting ,  30 (4), 26–28. This article describes some of the difficulty many nurses experience when transitioning from nursing to a nurse consulting business. While the article focuses on issues of work-life balance, the differences of working for someone else versus working for yourself, marketing, and other business issues the author’s offer of only their personal experience is brief with few or no alternative solutions provided. There is no mention throughout the article of making use of other research about starting a new business and being successful. While relying on the anecdotal advice for their list of issues, the author does reference other business resources such as the Small Business Administration to help with business planning and professional organizations that can help with mentorships. The article is a good resource for those wanting to start their own legal nurse consulting business, a good first advice article even. However, entrepreneurs should also use more business research studies focused on starting a new business, with strategies against known or expected pitfalls and issues new businesses face, and for help on topics the author did not touch in this abbreviated list of lessons learned.

Now you are ready to begin writing your own annotated bibliography.

• Choose your sources - Before writing your annotated bibliography, you must choose your sources. This involves doing research much like for any other project. Locate records to materials that may apply to your topic.
• Review the items - Then review the actual items and choose those that provide a wide variety of perspectives on your topic. Article abstracts are helpful in this process.
• The purpose of the work
• A summary of its content
• Information about the author(s)
• For what type of audience the work is written
• Its relevance to the topic
• Any special or unique features about the material
• Research methodology
• The strengths, weaknesses or biases in the material

Annotated bibliographies may be arranged alphabetically or chronologically, check with your instructor to see what he or she prefers.

Please see the  APA Examples page  for more information on citing in APA style.

• Last Updated: Aug 8, 2023 11:27 AM
• URL: https://libguides.umgc.edu/annotated-bibliography-apa

Annotated Bibliographies

What this handout is about.

This handout will explain why annotated bibliographies are useful for researchers, provide an explanation of what constitutes an annotation, describe various types of annotations and styles for writing them, and offer multiple examples of annotated bibliographies in the MLA, APA, and CBE/CSE styles of citation.

Introduction

Welcome to the wonderful world of annotated bibliographies! You’re probably already familiar with the need to provide bibliographies, reference pages, and works cited lists to credit your sources when you do a research paper. An annotated bibliography includes descriptions and explanations of your listed sources beyond the basic citation information you usually provide.

Why do an annotated bibliography?

One of the reasons behind citing sources and compiling a general bibliography is so that you can prove you have done some valid research to back up your argument and claims. Readers can refer to a citation in your bibliography and then go look up the material themselves. When inspired by your text or your argument, interested researchers can access your resources. They may wish to double check a claim or interpretation you’ve made, or they may simply wish to continue researching according to their interests. But think about it: even though a bibliography provides a list of research sources of all types that includes publishing information, how much does that really tell a researcher or reader about the sources themselves?

An annotated bibliography provides specific information about each source you have used. As a researcher, you have become an expert on your topic: you have the ability to explain the content of your sources, assess their usefulness, and share this information with others who may be less familiar with them. Think of your paper as part of a conversation with people interested in the same things you are; the annotated bibliography allows you to tell readers what to check out, what might be worth checking out in some situations, and what might not be worth spending the time on. It’s kind of like providing a list of good movies for your classmates to watch and then going over the list with them, telling them why this movie is better than that one or why one student in your class might like a particular movie better than another student would. You want to give your audience enough information to understand basically what the movies are about and to make an informed decision about where to spend their money based on their interests.

What does an annotated bibliography do?

A good annotated bibliography:

• encourages you to think critically about the content of the works you are using, their place within a field of study, and their relation to your own research and ideas.
• proves you have read and understand your sources.
• establishes your work as a valid source and you as a competent researcher.
• situates your study and topic in a continuing professional conversation.
• provides a way for others to decide whether a source will be helpful to their research if they read it.
• could help interested researchers determine whether they are interested in a topic by providing background information and an idea of the kind of work going on in a field.

What elements might an annotation include?

• Bibliography according to the appropriate citation style (MLA, APA, CBE/CSE, etc.).
• Explanation of main points and/or purpose of the work—basically, its thesis—which shows among other things that you have read and thoroughly understand the source.
• Verification or critique of the authority or qualifications of the author.
• Comments on the worth, effectiveness, and usefulness of the work in terms of both the topic being researched and/or your own research project.
• The point of view or perspective from which the work was written. For instance, you may note whether the author seemed to have particular biases or was trying to reach a particular audience.
• Relevant links to other work done in the area, like related sources, possibly including a comparison with some of those already on your list. You may want to establish connections to other aspects of the same argument or opposing views.

The first four elements above are usually a necessary part of the annotated bibliography. Points 5 and 6 may involve a little more analysis of the source, but you may include them in other kinds of annotations besides evaluative ones. Depending on the type of annotation you use, which this handout will address in the next section, there may be additional kinds of information that you will need to include.

For more extensive research papers (probably ten pages or more), you often see resource materials grouped into sub-headed sections based on content, but this probably will not be necessary for the kinds of assignments you’ll be working on. For longer papers, ask your instructor about their preferences concerning annotated bibliographies.

Did you know that annotations have categories and styles?

Decisions, decisions.

As you go through this handout, you’ll see that, before you start, you’ll need to make several decisions about your annotations: citation format, type of annotation, and writing style for the annotation.

First of all, you’ll need to decide which kind of citation format is appropriate to the paper and its sources, for instance, MLA or APA. This may influence the format of the annotations and bibliography. Typically, bibliographies should be double-spaced and use normal margins (you may want to check with your instructor, since they may have a different style they want you to follow).

MLA (Modern Language Association)

See the UNC Libraries citation tutorial for basic MLA bibliography formatting and rules.

• MLA documentation is generally used for disciplines in the humanities, such as English, languages, film, and cultural studies or other theoretical studies. These annotations are often summary or analytical annotations.
• Title your annotated bibliography “Annotated Bibliography” or “Annotated List of Works Cited.”
• Following MLA format, use a hanging indent for your bibliographic information. This means the first line is not indented and all the other lines are indented four spaces (you may ask your instructor if it’s okay to tab over instead of using four spaces).
• Begin your annotation immediately after the bibliographic information of the source ends; don’t skip a line down unless you have been told to do so by your instructor.

APA (American Psychological Association)

See the UNC Libraries citation tutorial for basic APA bibliography formatting and rules.

• Natural and social sciences, such as psychology, nursing, sociology, and social work, use APA documentation. It is also used in economics, business, and criminology. These annotations are often succinct summaries.
• Annotated bibliographies for APA format do not require a special title. Use the usual “References” designation.
• Like MLA, APA uses a hanging indent: the first line is set flush with the left margin, and all other lines are indented four spaces (you may ask your instructor if it’s okay to tab over instead of using four spaces).
• After the bibliographic citation, drop down to the next line to begin the annotation, but don’t skip an extra line.
• The entire annotation is indented an additional two spaces, so that means each of its lines will be six spaces from the margin (if your instructor has said that it’s okay to tab over instead of using the four spaces rule, indent the annotation two more spaces in from that point).

CBE (Council of Biology Editors)/CSE (Council of Science Editors)

See the UNC Libraries citation tutorial for basic CBE/CSE bibliography formatting and rules.

• CBE/CSE documentation is used by the plant sciences, zoology, microbiology, and many of the medical sciences.
• Annotated bibliographies for CBE/CSE format do not require a special title. Use the usual “References,” “Cited References,” or “Literature Cited,” and set it flush with the left margin.
• Bibliographies for CSE in general are in a slightly smaller font than the rest of the paper.
• When using the name-year system, as in MLA and APA, the first line of each entry is set flush with the left margin, and all subsequent lines, including the annotation, are indented three or four spaces.
• When using the citation-sequence method, each entry begins two spaces after the number, and every line, including the annotation, will be indented to match the beginning of the entry, or may be slightly further indented, as in the case of journals.
• After the bibliographic citation, drop down to the next line to begin the annotation, but don’t skip an extra line. The entire annotation follows the indentation of the bibliographic entry, whether it’s N-Y or C-S format.
• Annotations in CBE/CSE are generally a smaller font size than the rest of the bibliographic information.

After choosing a documentation format, you’ll choose from a variety of annotation categories presented in the following section. Each type of annotation highlights a particular approach to presenting a source to a reader. For instance, an annotation could provide a summary of the source only, or it could also provide some additional evaluation of that material.

In addition to making choices related to the content of the annotation, you’ll also need to choose a style of writing—for instance, telescopic versus paragraph form. Your writing style isn’t dictated by the content of your annotation. Writing style simply refers to the way you’ve chosen to convey written information. A discussion of writing style follows the section on annotation types.

Types of annotations

As you now know, one annotation does not fit all purposes! There are different kinds of annotations, depending on what might be most important for your reader to learn about a source. Your assignments will usually make it clear which citation format you need to use, but they may not always specify which type of annotation to employ. In that case, you’ll either need to pick your instructor’s brain a little to see what they want or use clue words from the assignment itself to make a decision. For instance, the assignment may tell you that your annotative bibliography should give evidence proving an analytical understanding of the sources you’ve used. The word analytical clues you in to the idea that you must evaluate the sources you’re working with and provide some kind of critique.

Summary annotations

There are two kinds of summarizing annotations, informative and indicative.

Summarizing annotations in general have a couple of defining features:

• They sum up the content of the source, as a book report might.
• They give an overview of the arguments and proofs/evidence addressed in the work and note the resulting conclusion.
• They do not judge the work they are discussing. Leave that to the critical/evaluative annotations.
• When appropriate, they describe the author’s methodology or approach to material. For instance, you might mention if the source is an ethnography or if the author employs a particular kind of theory.

Informative annotation

Informative annotations sometimes read like straight summaries of the source material, but they often spend a little more time summarizing relevant information about the author or the work itself.

Indicative annotation

Indicative annotation is the second type of summary annotation, but it does not attempt to include actual information from the argument itself. Instead, it gives general information about what kinds of questions or issues are addressed by the work. This sometimes includes the use of chapter titles.

Critical/evaluative

Evaluative annotations don’t just summarize. In addition to tackling the points addressed in summary annotations, evaluative annotations:

• evaluate the source or author critically (biases, lack of evidence, objective, etc.).
• show how the work may or may not be useful for a particular field of study or audience.
• explain how researching this material assisted your own project.

Combination

An annotated bibliography may combine elements of all the types. In fact, most of them fall into this category: a little summarizing and describing, a little evaluation.

Writing style

Ok, next! So what does it mean to use different writing styles as opposed to different kinds of content? Content is what belongs in the annotation, and style is the way you write it up. First, choose which content type you need to compose, and then choose the style you’re going to use to write it

This kind of annotated bibliography is a study in succinctness. It uses a minimalist treatment of both information and sentence structure, without sacrificing clarity. Warning: this kind of writing can be harder than you might think.

Don’t skimp on this kind of annotated bibliography. If your instructor has asked for paragraph form, it likely means that you’ll need to include several elements in the annotation, or that they expect a more in-depth description or evaluation, for instance. Make sure to provide a full paragraph of discussion for each work.

As you can see now, bibliographies and annotations are really a series of organized steps. They require meticulous attention, but in the end, you’ve got an entire testimony to all the research and work you’ve done. At the end of this handout you’ll find examples of informative, indicative, evaluative, combination, telescopic, and paragraph annotated bibliography entries in MLA, APA, and CBE formats. Use these examples as your guide to creating an annotated bibliography that makes you look like the expert you are!

MLA Example

APA Example

CBE Example

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

American Psychological Association. 2010. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association . 6th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Bell, I. F., and J. Gallup. 1971. A Reference Guide to English, American, and Canadian Literature . Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Bizzell, Patricia, and Bruce Herzburg. 1991. Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing , 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford Books.

Center for Information on Language Teaching, and The English Teaching Information Center of the British Council. 1968. Language-Teaching Bibliography . Cambridge: Cambridge University.

Engle, Michael, Amy Blumenthal, and Tony Cosgrave. 2012. “How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography.” Olin & Uris Libraries. Cornell University. Last updated September 25, 2012. https://olinuris.library.cornell.edu/content/how-prepare-annotated-bibliography.

Gibaldi, Joseph. 2009. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers , 7th ed. New York: The Modern Language Association of America.

Huth, Edward. 1994. Scientific Style and Format: The CBE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers . New York: University of Cambridge.

Kilborn, Judith. 2004. “MLA Documentation.” LEO: Literacy Education Online. Last updated March 16, 2004. https://leo.stcloudstate.edu/research/mla.html.

Spatt, Brenda. 1991. Writing from Sources , 3rd ed. New York: St. Martin’s.

University of Kansas. 2018. “Bibliographies.” KU Writing Center. Last updated April 2018. http://writing.ku.edu/bibliographies .

University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2019. “Annotated Bibliography.” The Writing Center. Accessed June 14, 2019. https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/annotatedbibliography/ .

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Annotated Bibliographies

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Definitions

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. Therefore, an annotated bibliography includes a summary and/or evaluation of each of the sources. Depending on your project or the assignment, your annotations may do one or more of the following.

For more help, see our handout on paraphrasing sources.

For more help, see our handouts on evaluating resources .

• Reflect : Once you've summarized and assessed a source, you need to ask how it fits into your research. Was this source helpful to you? How does it help you shape your argument? How can you use this source in your research project? Has it changed how you think about your topic?

Your annotated bibliography may include some of these, all of these, or even others. If you're doing this for a class, you should get specific guidelines from your instructor.

Why should I write an annotated bibliography?

To learn about your topic : Writing an annotated bibliography is excellent preparation for a research project. Just collecting sources for a bibliography is useful, but when you have to write annotations for each source, you're forced to read each source more carefully. You begin to read more critically instead of just collecting information. At the professional level, annotated bibliographies allow you to see what has been done in the literature and where your own research or scholarship can fit. To help you formulate a thesis: Every good research paper is an argument. The purpose of research is to state and support a thesis. So, a very important part of research is developing a thesis that is debatable, interesting, and current. Writing an annotated bibliography can help you gain a good perspective on what is being said about your topic. By reading and responding to a variety of sources on a topic, you'll start to see what the issues are, what people are arguing about, and you'll then be able to develop your own point of view.

To help other researchers : Extensive and scholarly annotated bibliographies are sometimes published. They provide a comprehensive overview of everything important that has been and is being said about that topic. You may not ever get your annotated bibliography published, but as a researcher, you might want to look for one that has been published about your topic.

The format of an annotated bibliography can vary, so if you're doing one for a class, it's important to ask for specific guidelines.

The bibliographic information : Generally, though, the bibliographic information of the source (the title, author, publisher, date, etc.) is written in either MLA or APA format. For more help with formatting, see our MLA handout . For APA, go here: APA handout .

The annotations: The annotations for each source are written in paragraph form. The lengths of the annotations can vary significantly from a couple of sentences to a couple of pages. The length will depend on the purpose. If you're just writing summaries of your sources, the annotations may not be very long. However, if you are writing an extensive analysis of each source, you'll need more space.

You can focus your annotations for your own needs. A few sentences of general summary followed by several sentences of how you can fit the work into your larger paper or project can serve you well when you go to draft.

How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography: The Annotated Bibliography

• The Annotated Bibliography
• Fair Use of this Guide

Explanation, Process, Directions, and Examples

What is an annotated bibliography.

An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a brief (usually about 150 words) descriptive and evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited.

Annotations vs. Abstracts

Abstracts are the purely descriptive summaries often found at the beginning of scholarly journal articles or in periodical indexes. Annotations are descriptive and critical; they may describe the author's point of view, authority, or clarity and appropriateness of expression.

The Process

Creating an annotated bibliography calls for the application of a variety of intellectual skills: concise exposition, succinct analysis, and informed library research.

First, locate and record citations to books, periodicals, and documents that may contain useful information and ideas on your topic. Briefly examine and review the actual items. Then choose those works that provide a variety of perspectives on your topic.

Cite the book, article, or document using the appropriate style.

Write a concise annotation that summarizes the central theme and scope of the book or article. Include one or more sentences that (a) evaluate the authority or background of the author, (b) comment on the intended audience, (c) compare or contrast this work with another you have cited, or (d) explain how this work illuminates your bibliography topic.

Critically Appraising the Book, Article, or Document

For guidance in critically appraising and analyzing the sources for your bibliography, see How to Critically Analyze Information Sources . For information on the author's background and views, ask at the reference desk for help finding appropriate biographical reference materials and book review sources.

Choosing the Correct Citation Style

Check with your instructor to find out which style is preferred for your class. Online citation guides for both the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the American Psychological Association (APA) styles are linked from the Library's Citation Management page .

Sample Annotated Bibliography Entries

The following example uses APA style ( Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , 7th edition, 2019) for the journal citation:

Waite, L., Goldschneider, F., & Witsberger, C. (1986). Nonfamily living and the erosion of traditional family orientations among young adults. American Sociological Review, 51 (4), 541-554. The authors, researchers at the Rand Corporation and Brown University, use data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women and Young Men to test their hypothesis that nonfamily living by young adults alters their attitudes, values, plans, and expectations, moving them away from their belief in traditional sex roles. They find their hypothesis strongly supported in young females, while the effects were fewer in studies of young males. Increasing the time away from parents before marrying increased individualism, self-sufficiency, and changes in attitudes about families. In contrast, an earlier study by Williams cited below shows no significant gender differences in sex role attitudes as a result of nonfamily living.

This example uses MLA style ( MLA Handbook , 9th edition, 2021) for the journal citation. For additional annotation guidance from MLA, see 5.132: Annotated Bibliographies .

Waite, Linda J., et al. "Nonfamily Living and the Erosion of Traditional Family Orientations Among Young Adults." American Sociological Review, vol. 51, no. 4, 1986, pp. 541-554. The authors, researchers at the Rand Corporation and Brown University, use data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women and Young Men to test their hypothesis that nonfamily living by young adults alters their attitudes, values, plans, and expectations, moving them away from their belief in traditional sex roles. They find their hypothesis strongly supported in young females, while the effects were fewer in studies of young males. Increasing the time away from parents before marrying increased individualism, self-sufficiency, and changes in attitudes about families. In contrast, an earlier study by Williams cited below shows no significant gender differences in sex role attitudes as a result of nonfamily living.

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• Last Updated: Sep 29, 2022 11:09 AM
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Writing an Annotated Bibliography

Learn how to write and format an annotated bibliography in APA Style (7th ed.).

Conducting research and documenting your findings is an essential part of the academic writing process. There are times when you will need (or be required) to conduct initial research prior to deciding on a thesis or focus for your writing. An annotated bibliography is a helpful tool to help you track and assess your sources.

Similar to formatting a paper, an annotated bibliography is formatted with double spacing and has a title page. An annotated bibliography does not typically include a list of references, since the annotated bibliography itself is a list of references, only each entry also provides information about the source.

Components of an Annotated Bibliography

An annotated bibliography includes a reference entry and a short annotation (paragraph) for each source. How annotations are written depends on the purpose of the research. There are two main components for each source included in an annotated bibliography:

• Bibliographic Information : This includes the same information you would provide in a reference list, formatted according to a reference entry for the particular type of source it is.
• Annotation : This is a short paragraph about the source that oftentimes summarizes the source and evaluates the usefulness of the source for your research paper or project, but what you include in the paragraph will largely depend on your particular assignment requirements.

Purposes of Writing an Annotated Bibliography

Writing an annotated bibliography is an effective way to document the research process and better prepare for a first draft. By requiring an annotated bibliography, your professor is setting you up for success. Some of the purposes and benefits of writing an annotated bibliography include the following:

• Formulate a thesis : Conducting research is a prewriting activity that can help narrow the focus of a topic that you are researching. Writing annotations for each source can help you understand the breadth and depth of a subject and determine your focus.
• Review the literature : An annotated bibliography can help you analyze the available literature on a subject. This is especially helpful for relatively new or persuasive topics where it is important to read about multiple sides of an issue.
• Illustrate the direction of your research : An employer or professor may want a preview of your research prior to the final draft of your paper. An annotated bibliography is a way to show your current research and its usefulness.
• Help other researchers : When other researchers find your paper particularly engaging, they often will examine your reference entries. However, an annotated bibliography provides more information about a source, such as a summary, which allows researchers to make an informed decision about whether to locate that source. With a references list, the reader has to guess whether a source will be useful and relevant.

Ways to Annotate Sources

There are several ways to write annotations depending on the purpose or the requirements of the assignment or research. Common approaches to writing annotations include the following:

• Summarize the source : Summarizing the source means to state briefly the main ideas of the source in relation to the current research. For instance, a medical book may have multiple chapters, but the only part to summarize for this source is the information that pertains to the research for the current paper’s topic. Please note: A summary must be written in your own words.
• Evaluate the source : To evaluate a source means you determine the strengths and weaknesses of the piece in relation to a particular research topic. When evaluating a source, the reliability and validity of the source are also determined. Reliability refers to the source’s credibility. Is it biased? Is the article from a website that is also selling a product related to the subject of the article? Is there a hidden agenda in the source? Validity indicates the accuracy or correctness of the information. Is the information gathered from experts? Is it just the opinion of the author? Is the author an authority on the topic at hand? What are their professional or academic credentials?
• Reflect on the usefulness of the source : How does this source fit in with the current research project? Is this a source you can use in your paper? Does it help define a problem or present an argument that would add depth and detail to your research? Is it better suited as a starting point to find other sources (i.e., is it useful only for background information)?
• Combination : Any combination of the above approaches to writing an annotation may be required. You may choose to write a separate short paragraph for each approach, or combine them into one annotation. As always, it is essential that you are careful to restate things in your own words to avoid plagiarizing an authors’ original words or ideas.

Sample Annotated Bibliography

Note. When formatting an Annotated Bibliography on a Word document, the bibliographic references have hanging indents .

Baker, B. (2003, November 27). Version control helps keep rework to a minimum. *EDN, 48*(26), 227-232. https://doi.org/10.9999/1.111111

This is a short article geared mostly toward digital developers who either are programming more than 10,000 lines of code or are programming within teams. It also emphasizes the importance of a VCS, but more so in the development environment. For this project, the only thing I might use this for is the simple statement that while a VCS is great for any work environment, without the discipline to use it regularly, they are worthless.

Huber, T. (2005, May). *JEDI version control system*. SourceForge. https://jedivcs.sourceforge.net

This site includes detailed instructions for operating an open source VCS. It is written for a technical audience that must have some background on this particular system. What is interesting about this site is the idea of open source. Maybe there are other version control systems available via the Internet through shareware sites. This particular site will probably not be used in writing the final project, but it is a source that can lead to further research on this idea of freeware for a VCS.

McVittie, L. (2007). Version control, with integrity. *Network Computing, 12*(21), 34-45. https://doi.org/10.9999/2.222222

This is an informative article with an overview of the details inside a VCS—branching, configuration, repository, access management, and more. What makes this article valuable though is the overview of several version control systems on the market (at least in 2001). After reading through the overview of several products, if one fits what my company is looking for, I can begin searching for that product and further information on the Internet. This article may or may not be used in the actual writing of the final proposal, but it will be useful information for further research on the project.

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Annotated bibliographies: a primer, what's an annotated bibliography, choosing your sources, choosing your citation style, composing your annotations, example annotated bibliography entries, more detailed examples, created and modified by.

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An annotated bibliography is, in essence, an evolution of a basic bibliography or works cited.

A bibliography or works cited is a list of external information resources, such as books or journal articles, that you're citing in your own work. It's intended only to allow your readers to locate those sources separately by following the information in your citations. By contrast, an annotated bibliography is meant to provide your readers with more information about each of those sources. This typically takes the form of a brief summary of its contents highlighting the most important things about the work.

The first step in constructing an annotated bibliography is the same as with any other research project: finding useful, reliable sources. As always, it's important to subject your selected materials to a critical examination before using them in your work. Any sources you include in your annotated bibliography should be more than superficially relevant to the topic you're exploring; that is to say, they should help both you and your readers develop a more meaningful understanding of your topic. The information offered by your sources should also be both accurate and trustworthy. If you're not sure how to make that determination, the CRAAP test (linked below) is a helpful evaluative tool.

• Evaluating Information Guide on evaluating information when performing research. Includes the CRAAP test tool.
• Getting Started @ The Libraries General information about using the URI Libraries for research. Also provides tutorials for several common tasks at the library such as finding books and articles.
• Library Research Tips and Tricks Guide on optimizing various web tools for doing library research. Many of these techniques can be customized for use with the URI Library's resources.

Your next step when compiling an annotated bibliography should be to build a basic bibliography that includes all of your chosen sources. There isn't one universal citation style for use with annotated bibliographies, so you'll need to select a citation style that's appropriate to your project. Your instructor will most likely have a preferred style for you to use, so be sure to check with them first. Once you know which style you'll be working in, the links below should provide you with more details on how to construct individual bibliographic entries with the correct formatting.

• Citing Correctly and Avoiding Plagiarism Guide to commonly used formats as well as tips for avoiding plagiarism.

Once you've chosen your sources and assembled your bibliography, your final step will be writing annotations for each bibliographic entry. These should be relatively short - one paragraph, roughly 100-200 words. The tone should be academic, but you should write in full sentences and avoid using in-text citations of the work you're annotating.

What you include in your annotations will depend on the purpose of your annotated bibliography. If it's meant only to be descriptive in nature, then you should stick with purely factual sentences. This means describing the central focus of the cited work, as well as quickly summarizing the most significant aspects of the information presented in it, such as the authors' credentials, their intended audience, the theories involved, research methodology, and findings.

If your annotations are meant to evaluate the materials in your bibliography as well, then they should also contain some subjective sentences. These typically involve commentary on the strengths or limitations of the work, which can include pertinent information that wasn't covered or questions that are left unanswered. Additionally, you may also explain why the work is significant to your research topic, and its importance to understanding the subject.

Not sure whether your bibliography is meant to be descriptive or evaluative? Be sure to ask your instructor for clarification. The links below should also offer more assistance on how to compose your annotations.

• Writing an annotated bibliography Guide from the University of New England, Australia.
• How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography Guide from Cornell University.

Here are three examples of what an annotated bibliography entry should look like under three separate citation styles. Always remember to double-check your own work with your instructor to ensure that you're following the correct format your your assignment.

This is an example of an annotated bibliography entry in MLA style (8th edition) for an e-book :

Lautenbach, Ebbing, et al., editors. Practical Healthcare Epidemiology . E-book, 4th ed.,

Cambridge University Press, 2018. doi:10.1017/9781316597170

A compilation of essays providing an overview of the essentials of epidemiology within a healthcare setting. Edited by researchers from medical schools throughout the United States, and mostly featuring contributions from American writers. Broad areas covered include methods for preventing infection, major sources of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), antimicrobial-resistant organisms, and infection prevention within special healthcare settings. The authors target their writing towards healthcare professionals, particularly those working on infection prevention programs and those new to the field. As a result, the text focuses less on theory and more on practical advice from practitioners who have field experience in infection prevention, with an emphasis on specific anecdotal examples drawn from the authors’ careers. The book is therefore best understood as a baseline reference tool rather than a source of cutting-edge research.

This is an example of an annotated bibliography entry in APA style (7th edition) for a journal article accessed through an online database :

Cheng, S. H., Sun, Z., Lee, I.  H., Lee, C., Chen, K. C., Tsai, C. H., Yang, Y. K., & Yang, Y. C. (2017).

Factors related to self-reported social anxiety symptoms among incoming university students.

Early Intervention in Psychiatry , 11 (4), 314–321. doi:10.1111/eip.12247

The authors, all researchers and practitioners at National Cheng Kung University and its associated hospital, use data gathered from 5126 university students during their orientation activities to examine the circumstances of those who self-report social anxiety symptoms (SAS). Their collected data includes demographic information, lifestyle and social factors, an assessment of personality traits, and an inventory of psychological symptoms, all based on standardized tests accepted within the field. They found that 1221, or 23.7%, of those students reported an above-average level of SAS. Furthermore, upon subjecting their data to logistic regression analysis, they noted correlations between several factors and higher reported levels of SAS. Among others, those factors include being an undergraduate student, being a non-smoker, having poor social support, and displaying the symptoms of internet addiction. As with most studies that rely on self-reported information, the authors’ conclusions must be regarded cautiously, and as such this paper cannot be held as definitive. Nevertheless, it remains an importance piece of research on the subject of anxiety among college students, offering a potentially valuable bit of insight into its root causes.

This is an example of an annotated bibliography entry in Chicago style (17th edition) for a print book :

Blake, William. Selected Poetry and Prose . Edited by Northrop Frye. New York: Random House, 1953.

A collection of the major written works of the English poet and painter William Blake (1757–1827), edited and featuring an introduction by the prominent Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye. It contains many of the highlights of Blake’s standalone poetry, from his first collection Poetical Sketches to the pieces extracted from his notebooks now known collectively as The Pickering Manuscript. Selections from his epic and prophetic poems, such as Milton and Jerusalem, are featured as well, along with some of Blake’s prose, including a number of his personal letters and marginalia transcribed from his personal literature collection. Frye’s editorial decisions help to keep the book focused, and his introduction and notes add significant context to Blake’s writing. Though not a complete compilation of Blake’s work, this edition is nevertheless an integral one for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the poet’s oeuvre.

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Citation Styles

• Chicago Style

Annotated Bibliography Handout

What is an annotated bibliography?

The Process

Complete annotated bibliography examples: mla, complete annotated bibliography examples: apa, additional resources, example citations and annotations.

• Video Introduction
• Literature Reviews
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• Annotated Bibliography Handout Download our brief, printable guide to annotated bibliographies!

A list of sources/citations (AKA a bibliography) about your research topic that includes notes (AKA annotations) about each source.

The notes (or annotations) may include a summary, an assessment of the source, and/or a reflection on how the source has been or will be useful to your research project.

Why do I have to do this?

Your annotated bibliography demonstrates to your professor that you've found, evaluated, and begun to analyze appropriate sources for your research project.

It can also help you organize your thoughts for your research paper, and the citations will be useful later for building the Works Cited or References page for your final paper.

How should it look?

Your annotated bibliography should look like a Works Cited or References page, but with a paragraph about each source underneath each citation (the annotation).

Follow all the formatting guidelines of your citation style. For MLA, for example, you will double space your entire document, use size 12 Times New Roman font with 1 inch margins, and list all citations alphabetically by the first word of the citation. 

Review the handouts and examples linked below!

The Process of Writing an Annotated Bibliography  

• L ocate books, articles, and other resources that may contain useful information and ideas on your topic.
• Read and review the actual items, then choose those works that provide a variety of perspectives on your topic.
• Is the source current or out of date for your topic?
• What type of audience is the author addressing?
• Is the information based on fact, opinion, or propaganda?
• Is the author's point of view objective and impartial?
• Does the information appear to be valid and well-researched, or is it questionable and unsupported by evidence?
• Is the publication organized logically?
• Are the main points clearly presented?
• Once you've found enough trustworthy sources, you're ready to build your citations using the appropriate style such as MLA, APA, or Chicago/Turabian.
• Remember to follow all style and formatting guidelines (for example, ordering your citations alphabetically).

• Finally, you'll write a concise annotation underneath each citation.
• Annotations typically include summary, assessment, and reflection portions, but requirements may vary. Consult your prompt or ask your professor about their expectations.

The summary will be a concise overview of the source, its main ideas, the authors' hypothesis, and their conclusions. This will be similar to the information you might find in the abstract of a scholarly journal article.

An assessment might include information about the author, publisher, or publication credentials, the currency of the source, its intended audience, any bias you perceived, any questions or criticisms you have about the authors' methodology, and any other ideas you have about why the source is or is not credible.

Your reflection should be about how the source fits into your own research process. This might include, for example, useful information you gained from the source, questions it brought up that impacted your further research, or how you expect to use it in your paper.

• MLA annotated bibliography example #1 provided by Germanna Community College
• MLA annotated bibliography example #2 provided by Spartanburg Community College
• APA annotated bibliography example #1 provided by Liberty University
• APA annotated bibliography example #2 provided by Bethel University

Annotated Bibliography Resources

Excelsior OWL Introduction to Annotated Bibliographie s

Research Tips

• Research 101 Guide
• Recommended workshops:  " Find Books & Articles" and/or "Google Tips & Tricks"

Evaluating Sources

• Evaluating Information
• Applying the CRAAP Test   (courtesy of Meriam Library at CSU-Chico)
• Recommended workshop:  " Website Investigator"

Citation Guides

• Excelsior OWL MLA Guide
• Excelsior OWL APA Guide
• Excelsior OWL Chicago Guide
• Recommended workshop:  " Cite Right"

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• ELAC Reading and Writing Center

Example APA citation:

Waite, L. J,. Goldschneider, F, K., & Witsberger, C. (1986). Nonfamily living and the erosion of traditionally family orientations among young adults. American Sociological Review , 55(4), 541-554.  

Example MLA citation:

Waite, Linda J., Frances Kobrin Goldscheider, and Christina Witsberger. “Nonfamily Living and the Erosion of Traditional Family Orientations Among Young Adults.” American Sociological Review , vol 51, no. 4, 1986, pp. 541-4.

Example Annotation :

The authors, researchers at the Rand Corporation and Brown University, use data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women and Young Men to test their hypothesis that nonfamily living by young adults alters their attitudes, values, plans, and expectations, moving them away from their belief in traditional sex roles. They find their hypothesis strongly supported in young females, while the effects were fewer in studies of young males. Increasing the time away from parents before marrying increased individualism, self-sufficiency, and changes in attitudes about families. In contrast, an earlier study by William cited below shows no significant gender differences in sex role attitude as a result of non-family living. I can use this in my research paper to support my argument that waiting to get married can be beneficial to women.

Adapted with permission from Olin Library Reference, Research & Learning Services, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY, USA.

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Referencing and citing

Annotated bibliographies.

• What is referencing?

Introduction

Content and structure, writing annotations.

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An annotated bibliography is a list of information sources in which each source has a brief description explaining the content and significance of the source. These descriptions, called “annotations”, help the reader determine the usefulness of each source and can be a starting point for future research.

Annotated bibliographies often exist as separate documents. They may also be added to other written work but they do not replace the reference list or bibliography required for the purpose of referencing and citing.

What is a bibliography? explains the difference between a reference list or list of works cited, a bibliography or list of works consulted, and an annotated bibliography.

More information

• Annotated bibliography (Te Taiako Student Learning StudyHub) Summary of how to write an annotated bibliography. Includes samples in APA referencing style. PDF file.
• What is an annotated bibliography? [video with captions, 5:08 minutes] Excellent introduction to annotated bibliographies. (OWLPurdue, Purdue University)
• Purdue OWL: Annotated bibliographies Explains how to write an annotated bibliography. (Purdue University)

Your annotated bibliography should have a clearly defined scope and give concise, accurate, information about the information sources included. For the content and structure of your annotated bibliography, consider:

• Subject scope – An annotated bibliography is usually a list of information sources related to a particular topic. Clearly define your topic or research question.  
• Literature coverage – Clearly state whether your bibliography is a comprehensive survey of all available literature on the subject, or only a sample. For example, does it include only one type of publication format, such as books, or does it include a variety of publication formats.  
• Bibliographic entries – Each information source must have a bibliographic entry. Each entry starts with the complete reference details for the source, formatted using a specific referencing style.  
• Annotations – For each bibliographic entry, the complete reference details are followed by a brief, descriptive, and evaluative, paragraph, called an annotation. Typically an annotation is 100–200 words long.

For writing your annotated bibliography, your School or Programme will have defined a layout and approved a referencing style that you should use. Ask your lecturer or supervisor for details.

Important formatting includes:

• Order of entries – Your bibliographic entries should be ordered alphabetically by the author of the information source, or by the title if there is no author name. Sometimes you should use an organisation's name as the author name, for example, for web pages where the individual page author is not identified but the website clearly belongs to an organisation. Follow the recommendations of the referencing style.  
• Referencing style – Format the complete reference details at the beginning of each bibliographic entry to match the referencing style.  
• Position of annotation – Your annotation may immediately follow the reference details on the same line, or it may be positioned one or two lines below, usually with a paragraph indent. Follow the layout defined by your School or Programme.

Annotations are similar to book reviews but annotations should be shorter, less personal, and less emotional than book reviews. Make sure annotations you write are accurate and concise.

Typically an annotation is one paragraph containing 100–200 words. Ask your lecturer or supervisor to confirm how long your annotations should be.

What should I write?

Each of your annotations should discuss the authority of the author of the information source: their credentials, experience, and qualifications to write about the subject.

Each of your annotations should include descriptive or evaluative statements about the contents of the information source. Most of your annotations will include both descriptive and evaluative statements.

• Summary of contents, scope, and significance – Is it a broad overview or a focussed aspect of the subject? Is it influenced by a particular theory, perspective, or purpose?
• Description of main focus, ideas, methods, evidence, arguments, or conclusions.
• Identification of intended audience.
• Identification and appraisal of significant features, such as a glossary, colour illustrations, or a good index. Avoid your personal opinions when writing descriptive annotations.  
• Evaluate accuracy, bias, strengths, and weaknesses of ideas, methods, evidence, arguments, or conclusions.
• Compare and contrast with content of other similar information sources.
• Comment on the intended audience – How well does it suit specialist, or general, audiences?
• Assess research and publication dates – Is it up-to-date? Does it matter?
• Assess relevance to subject scope. Reflect on its contribution to your annotated bibliography.

How should I write?

• Write in the third person – Use sentences with he, she, it, they, them, or their. Avoid using I, me, or my.
• Use verbs (action words) such as argues, asserts, demonstrates, discusses, examines, proves, speculates, suggests.
• Be concise and specific. Avoid unnecessary words. Avoid long, complex sentences.
• Sentences do not need to be grammatically complete but they should begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop.
• Avoid beginning annotations with phrases such as “This book discusses...” or “This paper presents...”.
• Avoid unnecessary repetition of information explicit in the title.

Below are two sample annotated bibliography entries using the MLA referencing style, with the annotation positioned two lines below with a paragraph indent, and descriptive, or informative, annotations.

Modern Language Association of America. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers . 7th ed. New York: MLA, 2009. Print.

Covers issues such as research and writing, spelling, punctuation, use of numbers and quotations, the format of research papers, and documentation. Guides the researcher and writer through the process of selecting a research topic to submitting the completed manuscript. This revised edition of the Handbook includes an updated and expanded discussion on the use of electronic resources in research and their citation.

London, Herbert. “Five Myths of the Television Age.” Television Quarterly 10.1 (1982): 81–89. Print.

Explains how television contradicts five commonly believed ideas. Uses specific examples of events seen on television, such as the assassination of John Kennedy, to illustrate points. Examples have been selected to contradict such truisms as: “seeing is believing”; “a picture is worth a thousand words”; and “satisfaction is its own reward.” Logical arguments are used to support ideas which reflect the author's opinion. Previous works on the topic are not mentioned.

• Purdue OWL: Annotated bibliography samples Samples of descriptive and evaluative annotations. Includes MLA, APA, and Chicago referencing styles. (Purdue University)
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VII. Researched Writing

7.6 Writing an Annotated Bibliography

Emilie Zickel; Melanie Gagich; and Terri Pantuso

As you are gathering sources in your research, you will want to keep track of which information comes from what source. While other strategies have been discussed such as note taking, some researchers use an annotated bibliography for long term reference purposes. As the name implies, an annotated bibliography is the bibliographical reference of a given source along with key information from that source that you may use for future reference. As assignment parameters will vary by instructor, generally speaking the annotations are 150-200 words in length per source and do not include quoted material. The purpose of the annotations is to summarize the material within the context of your thesis statement.

Annotated Bibliographies follow a common structure and format. Below is an explanation of the elements and format of an annotated bibliography.

Components of an Annotated Bibliography

An annotation often offers a summary of a source that you intend to use for a research project as well as some assessment of the source’s relevance to your project or quality and credibility. There are two key components for each source: the citation and the annotation.

The Annotated Bibliography Samples page [1]  on the Purdue OWL offers examples of general formatting guidelines for both an MLA and an APA Annotated Bibliography.

You will provide the full bibliographic reference for the source: author, title, source title, and other required information depending on the type of source. This will be formatted just as it would be in a typical Works Cited for an MLA paper or a References page for an APA paper.

Tone and Style

Some elements can vary depending on the style you are using (e.g., APA or MLA). Be sure to review your style guide along with your assignment sheet. Generally speaking, use the following as a guide:

• Use signal phrases to refer to the author(s).
• Always maintain a neutral tone and use the third-person point of view and correct tense according to style guide (present tense for MLA, past tense for APA) (i.e., Tompkins asserts… ).
• Keep the focus of the summary on the text, not on what you think of it, and try to put as most of the summary as you can in your own words. If you must use exact phrases from the source that you are summarizing, you must quote and cite them.
• Annotations should not be a replication of the abstract provided by the source.

What to Include in Annotations

• After the bibliographical information, begin to discuss the source. Begin with a general summary of the source. Describe the key sections of the text and their corresponding main points. Try to avoid focusing on details; a summary covers the essential points and typically does not include quoted material.
• Evaluate the source’s credibility or relevance. Is the author an expert on the topic? How do you know? Is the source peer-reviewed or otherwise credible in nature? How do you know? What makes this source a good one to use?
• Discuss how you plan to integrate the source in your paper. Do you need to point out similarities or differences with other sources in the annotated bibliography? How does it support (or refute) your intended thesis?

Review your Annotated Bibliography assignment sheet for additional content requirements . Instructors often require more than a simple summary of each source, and specific requirements may vary. Any (or all) of these aspects may be required in an annotated bibliography, depending on how or if your instructor has designed this assignment as part of a larger research project.

This section contains material from:

Gagich, Melanie, and Emilie Zickel. “Keeping Track of Your Sources and Writing an Annotated Bibliography.” In A Guide to Rhetoric, Genre, and Success in First-Year Writing . Cleveland: MSL Academic Endeavors. Accessed July 2019. https://pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu/csu-fyw-rhetoric/chapter/annotated-bibliography/ . Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

OER credited in the text above includes:

Jeffrey, Robin. About Writing: A Guide . Portland, OR: Open Oregon Educational Resources. Accessed December 18, 2020. https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/aboutwriting/ . Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

• "Annotated Bibliography Samples," Purdue Online Writing Lab, accessed December 20, 2021, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/annotated_bibliographies/annotated_bibliography_samples.html . ↵

A statement, usually one sentence, that summarizes an argument that will later be explained, expanded upon, and developed in a longer essay or research paper. In undergraduate writing, a thesis statement is often found in the introductory paragraph of an essay. The plural of thesis is theses .

7.6 Writing an Annotated Bibliography Copyright © 2022 by Emilie Zickel; Melanie Gagich; and Terri Pantuso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

How to Write an Annotated Bibliography for Research

Introduction

What is an annotated bibliography, writing an annotated bibliography, analyzing an annotated bibliography.

A literature review is more than just a collection of articles that inform your research project. For a literature review to benefit your research, you need to structure it in a way that organizes scientific knowledge and synthesizes this knowledge to justify your research project.

An annotated bibliography is one tool that provides that organization. In this article, we will explore why it's important to craft an annotated bibliography for your research and what to put into one so it can serve as a foundation for your future research inquiries.

Annotated bibliographies are a tool to organize existing research in a way that helps you to demonstrate your familiarity with a particular research topic. Each annotated bibliography entry outlines each study in your literature review and includes your analysis of the study.

A bibliography refers to the full list of references included in your literature review. An annotation refers to notes, summaries, and reflections about each reference. Thus, an annotated bibliography consists of the references in your literature review and your notes on each reference.

How is it different from a literature review?

A literature review is a collection of articles on the latest research and the subsequent synthesis of the theoretical developments arising from that research. An annotated bibliography can help you achieve that synthesis by organizing the information in a systematic way and providing space for your analysis (and critiques, where appropriate).

How long is an annotated bibliography?

An annotated bibliography includes all the relevant contemporary research conducted on the topics covered by the research questions you want to address. Ultimately, the current state of the research area you are addressing will dictate the length of your literature review and annotated bibliography.

Research topics that have greater theoretical coherence will have more relevant studies, while less-explored research questions will have fewer studies. In the end, it is the up to the researcher's judgment to determine whether they have collected sufficient research for their annotated bibliography.

Organization of knowledge

We've all likely made the mistake of simply downloading journal articles and other scholarly publications relevant to our research and throwing them in a folder on our computer, seldom to be read until it comes time to write our paper. At this point, these articles are just a jumble of information that is difficult to sift through. Of course, it is possible to synthesize knowledge without using annotated bibliographies, but the process will be time-consuming and tedious.

Think of information that you collect for an annotated bibliography as unstructured data that needs to be organized in a way that facilitates the identification of useful insights. Having all the existing research distilled into a succinct form is important, but providing a structure that organizes that knowledge will make it much easier to synthesize theory and present theory in your resulting research manuscripts or presentations.

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An annotated bibliography is more of a visual organizer for your thoughts about the existing research than it is a required element in your paper or presentation. That said, there should be an intentional process applied to the writing of annotated bibliographies that is important to outline in this section.

Conducting a literature review

The literature review informs the annotated bibliography and the subsequent research inquiries that it provokes. Ultimately, you will want to search for the most recent scholarly articles containing the most relevant information that pertains to the concept or theory you want to research.

When putting together a literature review, remember to search for the most recent research articles outlining important theoretical developments relevant to your research question. Be sure to consult various web sites, scholarly databases, and bibliographies of key articles for research that aligns with your research interests.

How do you format an annotated bibliography?

While there is no particular standard used to write annotations, there are a few common criteria used to analyze existing research sources:

• Bibliographic citation . Citing research papers is an important part of the research publication process. By providing a reference in the proper citation format now, you can make it easier to copy and paste this reference entry into your paper later.
• Keywords . Articles often come with a list of keywords that make it easy for you to search for when conducting your literature review. They are also useful for determining what aspects of your research inquiry are and aren't being explored by the collected research.
• Study description . A brief summary (typically one paragraph) of each research paper can help you conduct your literature review. Complete sentences may not be necessary, but writing your own understanding of each paper now can make writing your background section easier later on.
• Research context . Context is important because cultural influences, historical factors, and other sociocultural resources inform the data collection and analysis. Be sure to outline the relevant details of the place in which the study was conducted.
• Methods . The various methods employed in qualitative research look at phenomena in profoundly different ways. Make sure to list the methods for each study to identify any methodological gaps when analyzing your annotated bibliography.
• Potential critiques . Use this space in your annotated bibliography to note what each study has overlooked in terms of theory or methods. These critiques will contribute to the problem statement that defines your research question and the resulting study.

Other items to include in your reference list might include DOI numbers, theoretical frameworks , study limitations, and any other information that would be worth sorting or filtering when you conduct your analysis .

Ultimately, the annotated bibliography format is either determined by your assignment guidelines (if it is a requirement of your coursework) or your own judgment (when you are distilling research for designing a study ). Some annotated bibliographies are written in paragraph form like a series of little essays, each describing a particular bibliographic citation. Others can also take the form of a table that visually organizes the information in a form where it is easy to spot patterns and limitations.

Whatever you decide, the format should be consistent across each annotated bibliography entry. The effort it takes to consistently format your bibliography will save time later on as your collected research will be easier to read and synthesize.

If you do use your annotated bibliography in your research paper for publication, ensure that your citations conform to Modern Language Association (MLA) format, American Psychological Association (APA) format, or the reference format used in the journal to which you are submitting your research. You can refer to a publication manual like the MLA Handbook, but it's probably more helpful to look for annotated bibliography examples online that can serve as models for your own bibliography.

Doing a quick search for journal articles that synthesize existing research in a literature review might give you some useful annotated bibliography examples.

Once you have organized your literature review in an annotated bibliography, the next step is identifying useful pathways for your own research to explore. Locating the gaps in the current scholarship is a necessary task for formulating a research question , defining your theoretical framework , and designing your overall study .

The Code-Document Analysis tool in ATLAS.ti can serve as a good annotated bibliography generator. Code your collected studies and analyze those codes in the Code-Document Analysis tool to gain a sense of what theories and developments are discussed in each study. By generating a visual understanding of the current state of research, you can make it easier to define subsequent lines of research inquiry that justify the study you want to conduct.

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• Finding Sources
• Writing the Annotations
• Formatting the Annotated Bibliography
• Citation This link opens in a new window

What is an Annotated Bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a list of sources in proper citation format, each with a descriptive paragraph. The description may critique, analyze or just summarize the content of the item. For this assignment,  you will write a critical/evaluative annotation for each source, critically appraising the evidence that addresses your practice problem. 

A good annotated bibliography:

• Encourages you to think critically about the content of the works you are using, the importance of the works within the field of study, and the relation of the works to your own research and ideas
• Proves you have read and understand your sources
• Establishes your work as a valid source and you as a competent researcher
• Provides a way for others to decide whether a source will be helpful to their research if they read it

*Excerpted from The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill .

The Annotated Bibliography should be the final result after a thorough review of the literature on your topic. Different databases should be searched to get different perspectives. If 8-10 sources are required, you should be reviewing many more sources (20-25), in detail,  before making final selections.

Steps to Writing an Annotated Bibliography

No matter which course or discipline you're researching in, the steps of writing an annotated bibliography should be similar:

• Research, identify, locate and read scholarly and professional articles, books, and documents for your bibliography
• Critically screen, analyze and evaluate the sources
• organize the sources in a logical order
• Create citations in proper APA format (see APA tab)
• Compose annotations

Resources on the Web

For more information on annotated bibliographies, visit these pages:

• Writing an Annotated Bibliography Dena Taylor, Health Sciences Writing Centre, University of Toronto
• Annotated Bibliographies The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Next: Finding Sources >>
• Last Updated: May 7, 2024 6:08 PM
• URL: https://stevenson.libguides.com/annotatedbib

Chapter 35: Annotated Bibliography

Part 6: chapter 35.

P art of the research process includes keeping track of your research through a working bibliography. One way to do this is through creating an annotated bibliography, a list of all the sources you have researched, including both their full bibliographic citations and some notes on how you might want to use each resource in your work.

The Writer’s Handbook explains that to make the best use of your research time, thoroughly read each source that is clearly relevant and document all the pieces you might use from it so that you will have a good chance of not having to revisit it. But just in case, take care to bookmark the site (and additionally save it to a folder set up for your research project) so you can easily return to it later and collect the needed information.

Ideally when working on a research paper, you should keep an annotated bibliography of the sources you plan to use–include both the bibliographic information and notes on each source. Each entry should include the following elements:

The complete citation information (in the format the assignment requires)

A summary or paraphrase of the contents of the source in your words

The direct quotations you may end up using (with page or paragraph numbers)

Additional strategy notes about how you plan to use the source

For the citation, gather the following components:

Name of author, editor, sponsoring organization, discussion group, or list

Title of article or subject line of discussion

Title of journal or site that has published the article

Version number or issue number, if applicable

Date of publication

Date you accessed the site

If a source does not appear to be as relevant as you initially thought it would be, document the situation in your log and move on. Don’t try to jam it into the essay just because you spent time tracking it down. Good researchers and good writers know they’ll encounter a few dead ends and bad leads.

Adapted from “Chapter Seven” of Writers’ Handbook , 2012, used according to creative commons CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Uses of an Annotated Bibliography

Boundless Writing explains that annotated bibliographies are useful for several reasons. If you keep one while you research, the annotated bibliography will function as a useful guide. Also, it will be easier for you to revisit sources later because you will already have notes explaining how you want to use each source. Additionally, if you find an annotated bibliography attached to one of the sources you are using, you can look at it to find other possible resources for your paper. While it’s a good idea to keep a working annotated bibliography to help you during the writing process, you may also be assigned a more formal annotated bibliography for a course, such as English 1120, which often requires one. There are a few reasons your teachers might assign these: to review your sources, to help you summarize and evaluate your sources, to help you practice formal citation and to prepare you for upper division coursework.

Constructing Your Citations

To create a more formal annotated bibliography, make sure the first part of each entry in an annotated bibliography is the source’s full citation. A description of common citation practices can be found in the next few chapters. Two commonly assigned styles of citation are APA and MLA, and you will find details on both styles of citation in this textbook.

What to Include in a Formal Annotation

A good annotation has three parts, in addition to the complete bibliographic information for the source:

• A brief summary of the source written in your own words
• A critique and evaluation of credibility, and
• An explanation of how you will use the source in your essay

Start by stating the main idea of the source. If you have space, note the specific information that you want to use from the source, such as quotations, chapters, or page numbers. Then explain if the source is credible, and note any potential bias you observe. Finally, explain how that information is useful to your own work.

You may also consider the including:

An explanation about the authority and/or qualifications of the author

The scope or main purpose of the work

Any detectable bias or interpretive stance

The intended audience and level of reading

Example Annotation

Source: Farley, John. “The Spontaneous-Generation Controversy (1700–1860): The Origin of Parasitic Worms.” Journal of the History of Biology , 5 (Spring 1972), 95–125.

Notes: This essay discusses the conversation about spontaneous generation that was taking place around the time that Frankenstein was written. In addition, it introduces a distinction between abiogenesis and heterogenesis. The author argues that the accounts of spontaneous generation from this time period were often based on incorrect assumptions: that the discussion was focused primarily on micro-organisms, and that spontaneous-generation theories were disproved by experiments. The author takes a scientific approach to evaluating theories of spontaneous generation, and the presentation of his argument is supported with sources. It is a reliable and credible source. The essay will be helpful in forming a picture of the early 19th-century conversation about how life is formed, as well as explaining the critical perception of spontaneous-generation theories during the 19th century.

Adapted from “Chapter 7” of Writing , 2015 , used under creative commons CC-BY-SA 4.0

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• Academic essay overview
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Annotated Bibliography – Formatting Rules And Examples

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An annotated bibliography or an analytical bibliography includes the bibliographic reference of a set of works and a brief synthesis or review of these works. When citing sources , this descriptive or critical commentary aims either to inform the reader about the main ideas of a work or to measure the quality of a work by evaluating its credibility, accuracy, and relevance. This article provides insights into the format of an annotated bibliography and how to find relevant sources.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• 1 Annotated Bibliography – In a Nutshell
• 2 Definition: Annotated bibliography
• 3 Annotated bibliography formatting
• 4 Writing an annotated bibliography
• 5 Finding sources for your annotated bibliography

Annotated Bibliography – In a Nutshell

• An annotated bibliography consists of two parts: A reference list and a source summary.
• Learn how to format an annotated bibliography correctly.
• Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources should be included in the annotated bibliography.

Definition: Annotated bibliography

An annotated bibliography (or analytical bibliography) consists of a list of references, each subject to a commentary by the person carrying out the exercise.

First, a bibliography is the list of sources referenced in a document. You should be familiar with this method for any academic essay you’ve written:

• Think about the APA-style references you usually include.
• Include important source information, such as author name, article title, publication date, and page number

An annotated bibliography is a list of sources used in the body of the work, including a brief summary of each source. These summary annotations assess the accuracy and quality of the information sources and identify any possible reason for bias.

An annotated bibliography should present the sources alphabetically in list form, like a standard bibliography. Source summaries are usually around 150 words, although this may vary depending on the nature of the original.

Annotated bibliography formatting

There are several recognized ways of formatting an annotated bibliography. Use the style recommended by your institution of learning.

1. APA style

Formatting your annotated bibliography is the same as formatting an APA reference list. You use the same author-date style and place the elements in the same order.

Here’s a quick rundown of the guidelines for an annotated bibliography in APA style :

• Right-aligned page number
• Running header (Optional)
• One-inch margins
• Double-spaced
• The title “Annotated Bibliography” centered
• Hanging indent for the second and subsequent lines of the citation
• Indent annotation of five spaces

Grisham, J. (2021). The Judge’s List

Arguably the best legal thriller writer alive, John Grisham’s 2021 book sees investigator Lacy Stoltz follow the trail of a serial killer. The twist – she’s following in the footsteps of a sitting judge. It’s a well-structured and fast-paced novel but not as gripping as Grisham’s earlier works.

In MLA , each annotation should be one paragraph, between three and six sentences long (about 150 – 200 words). Start with the same format as a regular Works Cited list .

All lines should be double-spaced . Do not add an extra line between the citations.

Kenny, Anthony. A New History of Western Philosophy: In Four Parts. Oxford UP, 2010.

Broad history of Western philosophy from the ancient Greeks to the present day. Divided into four periods—ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern—each section begins with a chronological overview of the key thinkers, followed by chapters dedicated to each significant subfield in the period: metaphysics, political philosophy, God, etc.

3. Chicago style

An annotated bibliography in Chicago style should be formatted as the following:

• The text should be double-spaced.
• Numbering starts on the first page of writing (not the title page) at the top right of the page.
• Reference list entries must have a hanging indent (to do this in Microsoft Word 2003, click Format, then Paragraph, then Special, and choose Hanging).
• There should be 1-inch (2.54 cm) margins all around (top, bottom, left, and right) on each page.
• Use Times Roman font or a similar serif font.
• Each paragraph should be indented using the tab key.

Collins, Michael. “Carrying the Fire”, Pan Macmillan, 1974

Collins was the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo Mission. When the Lunar Lander descended to the surface of the moon, it was his task to stay with the Command Module in Lunar orbit. Collins is a man who has been extraordinarily close to the moon without walking on the surface. “Carrying the Fire” is a personal and mesmerizing account of his entire life and career.

Writing an annotated bibliography

Follow these steps when writing an annotated bibliography:

Types of Annotations

Finding sources for your annotated bibliography.

Research projects and compositions, especially argumentative or positional texts, require you to collect sources, develop a thesis , and then support that thesis through an analysis of the evidence, including sources, that you have compiled, ideally from visiting the university library.

Start by gathering all materials, including books, Google Scholar, websites, professional journals, periodicals, and papers that may contain valuable insights on your topic. Your annotated bibliography should include primary, secondary, and even tertiary sources to achieve the best marks in an academic essay.

How does an annotated bibliography in APA differ to MLA?

The main differences between the APA style and MLA formats are:

• Creation of the title page
• In-text citations
• Reference lists

MLA uses the author-page number style for in-text citations, while an APA annotated bibliography uses the author-date citation style.

What goes into an annotated bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a list of citations, which can include books, journal articles, and documents.

Each citation is usually followed by a brief description of the text and, more importantly, a critical evaluation.

What is essential in an annotated bibliography?

The annotated bibliography adds descriptive and evaluative comments (i.e., an annotation), assessing the nature and value of the cited works. The addition of commentary provides the future reader or researcher essential critical information and a foundation for further research.

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