How to Write Annotations
An annotated bibliography may be made made up of only a few entries or many. The examples found on this page were created in APA Style.
Page Contents:
- How to Prepare for an Annotated Bibliography
- How to Annotate Books or Other Longer Works
- How to Annotate Articles
- Sample Annotation
How to Prepare for an Annotated Bibliography
Content
- Before you write an annotation, read the library's Evaluating Sources guide to be sure that you have thoroughly analyzed it.
- Each annotation should answer all the typical questions usually addressed in an annotation, as well as any additional questions specified in your assignment prompt. This may require one to three paragraphs.
Style
- Be sure that your citations are formatted correctly in the style required for your assignment. See the library's Citing Sources guide for help.
- The annotation lines up under the hanging indent of the reference's second line.
- Annotations are written in paragraph form using complete, grammatically correct sentences.
How to Annotate Books or Other Longer Works
To write an effective annotation of a book or other longer source, you need not necessarily read the entire work. You should be able to get enough information to write an annotation by:
- Examining the table of contents and index to see what topics the author covers.
- Reading the preface or introduction, a representative chapter, and the conclusion.
- Skimming other chapters or sections to see what sources and evidence the author uses, read any notes provided by the author, and check the footnotes/endnotes and bibliography for references to other helpful material.
How to Annotate Articles
Articles are usually short enough to be read start-to-finish. As you read through the article, make a note of the article’s research question(s), hypothesis, theory, or main point. Your annotation should make note of any research methods, results, and conclusions drawn. Examine any evidence that was provided (charts, survey responses, tables) and discuss strengths and weaknesses of the article, including whether it adequately addresses alternative perspectives.
Sample Annotation
Below is a sample annotation. In this example, the writer of the annotation provides a summary of a scholarly article and discusses the author's credentials and different perspectives among sources in the annotated bibliography. For additional examples, see the Annotated Bibliography Samples page on the Purdue Online Writing Lab.
The image below shows how this entry fits the requirements of an annotated bibliography.
