What is an annotated bib?

An annotated bibliography provides a citation, summary, and evaluation of the sources you plan to include in a longer academic work, like a research paper or argument. Good academic writing includes diverse sources that reflect a comprehensive understanding of a particular topic. Because you’re pulling information from various sources that play specific roles in supporting your argument or scholarly inquiry, annotated bibliographies give you the space to not only create a citation that you’ll later include on your Works Cited page, but to put the work in your own words and clearly articulate its credibility and relevance to your own ideas.

What does an annotated bibliography include?

Annotated bibliographies include three key elements:

• Works cited entry
• Summary of the work
• Evaluation of the source

Works Cited Entry

Each entry on your annotated bibliography should start with a works cited entry. A detailed citation does a couple of things: first, it provides your reader with all the identifying information for the source, including the author’s name, name of the article or book, and other important publication information; second, it provides an easy way to create the Works Cited page for your larger writing project since you can simply copy and paste from one document to the next.

Summary of the Work

Following the Works Cited entry, you’ll include a brief paragraph that summarizes the key content of the work. Regardless of what kind of work you’re summarizing, you should include the following content:

1. Introduce the name of the work, along with the author(s).
2. Identify the main argument or research question of the work
3. Discuss the methods the author uses to support their argument or answer their research question
4. Indicate the major findings or big takeaways of the work

Evaluation of the Source

While annotated bibs usually primarily contain scholarly sources, it’s important to still review each source you include with a critical eye. Once you’ve summarized the source, you’ll want to draw from that content to assess the source. There are many ways you can assess a scholarly source, but one of the most common ways is to use the CRAAP test.

Currency

Relevance

Accuracy

Authority

Purpose

Formatting Conventions

Annotated bibliographies, regardless of field or profession, tend to follow a specific formatting practice. It’s weird, and unlike any other formatting conventions you’ll see in academic writing (and professional writing, for that matter), but it’s effective given the purpose of an annotated bibliography.

Formatting the Citation

All citations are double-spaced and should include a hanging indent.

Many scholarly databases will include full citations, which you can copy and paste onto your document. Be careful, though, because when you copy and paste, it may not include all of the formatting requirements. For instance, when you paste onto your own document, the title of a book or journal may no longer be italicized; or, the names of the authors may be written in all caps, when that content should be written in title case.

Formatting the Annotation

The annotation includes the summary and evaluation of the work. The content of your annotation should be written in block format. Block format requires the use of single spacing and not indenting the first line of a paragraph. If your annotation includes more than one paragraph (and some do), you’ll want to have a visual space between paragraphs.