What is an annotated bibliography?
At times, your instructor may require that you write an annotated bibliography instead of an essay with regular in-text citations and a reference list. An annotated bibliography is similar to a reference list in that it is a list of sources that you researched, but it also requires you to add more information about the source. Each source listed requires two things:
- a citation of each source (book, article, etc.)
- the annotation, which is a brief descriptive and/or critical, analytical, and evaluative paragraph of the source
Follow these APA guidelines (section 9.51), unless your instructor has told you differently:
- format and order references in alphabetical order as you would in a normal reference list
- the entire annotation is indented by 0.5 inches and begins in a new paragraph below its reference
- if the annotation consists of multiple paragraphs, indent the first line of any subsequent paragraph another 0.5 inches
Sample annotated bibliography
