How to Format an APA Citation for an Annotated Bibliography
An APA-annotated bibliography improves upon the standard bibliography. Rather than just a list of sources, an annotated bibliography gives you the opportunity to evaluate the source. Your annotations are a useful way to contextualize your sources. You can tell the reader---be it an instructor or your peers---how good the source is, what information you got from it, how well you understand it and where the information fits into the broader context of your research.
Instructions
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Write your bibliography. Gather all the information for your bibliography including titles, authors, dates and publication information. Put the information into the standard APA style for the type of citation for book, magazine or website.
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Add the annotations. Annotations should be three to six sentences and address two key components. First, you should write between two and four sentences that summarize the information from the source. Second, write one or two sentences telling the reader how this source relates to your work. The second part should also give a critical appraisal of the source.
An annotation is different than an abstract. It does not merely summarize. It should also analyze and critique.
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Indent your entries. APA-annotated bibliographies follow a format for indentation. The first line of an entry should not be indented at all. The second line should be indented four spaces. Your annotations should be indented an additional two spaces from the line previously above it. For example, if your citation took two or more lines, the annotation would be indented a total of six spaces. If your citation only took one line, the annotation would be indented a total of two spaces.
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Use proper formatting. If your bibliography is particularly long, three or more pages, you should separate sources by subject. As always, your bibliography should be double spaced written in a clear and easy-to-read 12-point font and aligned to the left with a ragged edge. New sentences should begin two spaces after the end of the last sentence.
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Proofread your bibliography. Read your bibliography carefully two or three times before you hand it in. Make sure that your citations are formatted properly. Look for things such as multiple-author works formatted as single-author works and other minor things that make a big difference. Finally make sure that there are no typos or spelling errors that spell check didn't catch.
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