Annotated Bibliography Examples
Answer
All citations styles have commonalities in the annotated bibliographic style or genre:
| Bibliography | Annotations |
| Use Bibliographic citation as a heading |
Include summary AND analysis (drawing similarities or differences between sources) |
| Rely on style manual (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc). |
Concise, specific, informative language |
| List sources in ABC order by authors' last name |
Quote material that you want to work with in your essay |
| Employ hanging indent |
Record important ideas you want to remember and record ideas that you can respond to (agree or disagree with) |
| Double spaced | Detail is more important than length: how do you plan to use the source? |
Examples
APA book citation (from the APA Style Blog)
Ehrenreich, B. (2001). Nickel and dimed: On (not) getting by in America. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
In this book of nonfiction based on the journalist's experiential research, Ehrenreich attempts to ascertain whether it is possible for an individual to live on a minimum-wage in America. Taking jobs as a waitress, a maid in a cleaning service, and a Walmart sales employee, the author summarizes and reflects on her work, her relationships with fellow workers, and her financial struggles in each situation.
An experienced journalist, Ehrenreich is aware of the limitations of her experiment and the ethical implications of her experiential research tactics and reflects on these issues in the text. The author is forthcoming about her methods and supplements her experiences with scholarly research on her places of employment, the economy, and the rising cost of living in America. Ehrenreich’s project is timely, descriptive, and well-researched.
MLA book citation (from the MLA Work Cited: A Quick Guide)
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books, 1995.
Lamott's book offers honest advice on the nature of a writing life, complete with its insecurities and failures. Taking a humorous approach to the realities of being a writer, the chapters in Lamott's book are wry and anecdotal and offer advice on everything from plot development to jealousy, from perfectionism to struggling with one's own internal critic.
In the process, Lamott includes writing exercises designed to be both productive and fun. Lamott offers sane advice for those struggling with the anxieties of writing, but her main project seems to be offering the reader a reality check regarding writing, publishing, and struggling with one's own imperfect humanity in the process. Rather than a practical handbook to producing and/or publishing, this text is indispensable because of its honest perspective, its down-to-earth humor, and its encouraging approach.
Chapters in this text could easily be included in the curriculum for a writing class. Several of the chapters in Part 1 address the writing process and would serve to generate discussion on students' own drafting and revising processes. Some of the writing exercises would also be appropriate for generating classroom writing exercises. Students should find Lamott's style both engaging and enjoyable.
Chicago book citation (from the Chicago Manual of Style)
Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 2007.
Organized by a theme or topic in history, Loewen's 2007 revised edition was updated largely due to reader response to the earlier version. The text addresses the lens through which most American history is taught, and how that lens obscures and distorts historical fact. Loewen reveals the glossy hero narrative agenda of textbooks as not just a simplified history, but as blindly nationalistic, racist, and marginalizing. Precise and exhaustive examination of poorly supported or misleading claims made by popular textbook companies address topics such as Christopher Columbus and the Vietnam War; as well as broader ideas like invisible racism that is applied to the entire history of the United States and the federal government's role in society.
Citations and references throughout the book provide the reader with a way to fact check Loewen's work as well as learn more about the history that actually occurred. The writing style straddles investigative journalism and well-researched historical non-fiction with ease. Each chapter prompts engagement with the reader's preexisting understanding of a topic as a conversation, not a reprimand. Read in conjunction with Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, the text supports a comprehensive understanding of American history that embraces a modern historiographic approach.