How to Complete
the Annotated Bibliography
2015
Overall Annotated Bibliography Format
• Complete bibliographic information
• Summary (of Source Material)
• Use (How you might use this source in your
essay)
• Important Quotations
Complete Bibliographic Information
• This is the complete publication information
for your source as it will appear in your Works
Cited. Your bibliography lists all the sources
you consulted; your Works Cited lists the ones
that actually appear in your essay
Bibliography Examples
• Obama, Barack. Dreams from my Father: A
Story of Race and Inheritance. New York:
Crown, 2007.
• Obama, Barack. “Full Text of Obama’s
Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech.”
MSNBC. MSNBC, 10
December 2009.
Web. 27 January 2010.
More Examples
• John McCain for Senator. Friends of John
McCain. Web. 27 January 2010.
Basic Format for Electronic Sources
• Author and/or editor names (if available)
• Article name in quotation marks (if applicable)
• Title of the Website, project, or book in italics. (Remember that some Print
publications have Web publications with slightly different names. They
may, for example, include the additional information or otherwise
modified information, like domain names [e.g. .com or .net].)
• Any version numbers available, including revisions, posting dates,
volumes, or issue numbers.
• Publisher information, including the publisher name and publishing date.
• Take note of any page numbers (if available).
• Date you accessed the material.
The Best Online Source for Help
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Noodle Tools
The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
MLA Style Guide
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/
11/
Summary
• This is a summary of the content of the source
• Guiding question to form a purposeful
summary:
– What does the author argue in this piece?
• Be careful not to just write “book” or “video
clip”
Use
• This section should detail how you plan to use
the source in your essay.
• Guiding questions:
– What is your opinion of the source?
– How will it be useful for your paper?
Important Quotations
• This year, you will copy and paste your sources
into a Google Doc.
• Using the comment function, you will highlight
important quotations that you plan to use in your
paper.
• Your ANNOTATION will be the notes you make
about the important quotes:
– How will you use it?
– What questions does it raise?
– How is it connected to other sources?
Important Quotations
• All of your annotated sources need to go in a
folder within your class folder called
“Annotated Bibliography”.
• Make sure the folder is within your class
folder, as that is the ONLY location I will look
to find in upon grading them.
Sample
• Citation: Lippman, Walter. “The Indispensable Opposition.” The Atlantic
Monthly. 1939. Print.
• Summary: Lippman argues that freedom of speech is not a noble right or
something to be tolerated; rather, it is absolutely necessary to hear the
opposition in order to improve our own opinions.
• Use: As a rhetoric source: arrangement (counter argument/rebuttal first),
establishes ethos through considering other side, uses logos through
reasoning, refutes famous quotation, antithesis/parallelism, incongruous
comparisons