Here is some information you should know when formatting your annotated bibliography:
Annotated bibliographies are incredibly helpful in the writing process and when you are organizing your thoughts, writing, and research into a cohesive work. Often, this is asked for by instructors or other researchers, but the benefits can greatly transform your work and help you incorporate strong evidence to support your argument or discussion. What an annotated bibliography is, is a list of your references and research, followed by a short summary of what the resource was about. When you are writing, this, make sure that your summary is relevant and provides you with a useful and specific reminder as to how this research will tie into your writing and work. Here are some guidelines for when you are writing an annotated bibliography:
- Your annotated bibliography needs to start on a new page from the rest of your writing, with the title of the page being centered and at the top
- All your sources need to be in alphabetical order
- Your summaries should be about a paragraph long
- If you are writing more than one paragraph, you need to start each one with a new line
- All writing that follows after the citation must be indented once to the right so that the author’s name in the citation is the only thing that is to the left
- You do not need to indent the paragraph(s), this is personal choice, unless told otherwise by your instructor
- When writing your annotated bibliography, keep in mind some of these helpful points of information that can help you focus your brief summaries:
- Who is the audience you are trying to captivate?
- What is the relevance or importance of this source as it relates to your writing?
- Who are the individuals who produced this research and what makes them credible?
- What are the significant findings or arguments of this work?
- What research methods were used for collecting data, and are they sound practices?
- What is the quality of the research done and is the work thorough?
