Annotated Bibliography Overview

 

APA style:

  • Follow style exactly! Use a printed guide to help
  • Author: 1st initial only
  • Newspapers and magazines: give date of publication in parentheses, not volume and issue; italicize source title
  • Journals: don’t include “vol.,” “issue,” or “pages”
  • Books: italicize title, capitalize only 1st word

 

Annotations:

  • Make sure you explain why you included this source in your bibliography - that's the relation to other works piece.
  • Use correct grammar, punctuation and spelling (too many run-ons, fragments, etc.)
  • Read your writing out loud before turning it in- Use academic writing.
  • Need to be in paragraph format and longer than 1 sentence
  • Must include the source’s main points.
  • What are the author’s strongest arguments ?
  • Make sure to include the relationship of this work to your overall topic, why include it as a good source?
  • Audience: look at the journal title! A 25-page article on abortion published in the Journal of Religion is NOT aimed at teenagers considering abortions. Think of the disciplinary perspectives as an audience.
  • Qualifications: Writing an article about something does not make you qualified to do so. (“The author is qualified because she is writing an article in a journal.” NO!)
  • Make sure to put this in your own words. Don't use words you don't understand just because they were in the abstract of the article!
  • Do not use quotes from the abstract or article.
  • Do not talk about yourself using Me, I or Mine. Do not say "I think"

 

Overall:

  • You must read the source you are annotating!! This needs to be obvious to the reader!
  • Bad examples:
    • “I hope to read this book someday.”
  • A viewpoint supported by evidence is NOT bias
    • Bias: personal or financial motive for a particular outcome (ex: firefighters oppose prop. 75 because it doesn’t want anyone meddling with it’s union)

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