What is an Annotated Bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a summary of the sources such as articles, books, journals, etc., you will be using in your research paper. It includes the references of these sources and may give a rationale for using those sources in your paper. 

As a writer, it helps you to carefully analyze the piece of literature you will be referencing in your work and its importance to your overall topic. It helps the reader to understand the relevance of the source in your paper. 

Annotated bibliographies are usually 100 to 150 words, however, it will depend on what your professor requests. Some annotated bibliographies are broken down by professors to simplify the task with questions while others just stipulate the paragraph summary and the citations. An annotated bibliography is not an abstract of the article, for example, but rather, it is a summary of the relevance of the article to your research paper.

Your citations may be in MLA or APA format, it depends on what formating style you will be using for your research paper.  Here is an example of an annotated bibliography in APA format: 

Torres-Díaz, J.-C., Duart, J. M., Gómez-Alvarado, H.-F., Marín-Gutiérrez, I., & Segarra-Faggioni, V. (2016). Internet Use and Academic Success in University Students. Comunicar, 24(48), 61–69.

The researchers surveyed 4,697 students from five universities in Ecuador to test the hypothesis of whether internet use correlates with the academic success of university students. They found that students that interact more and use educational materials online were less likely to fail as opposed to those students who solely searched for information. They also found that students with greater academic success were those that made use of the internet tools and interacted with their coursework. This article reveals the importance of interacting with online course materials, your classmates, and your professor as the constant engagement and interaction positively affects students' academic success. The findings of this research are aligned with previous literature on the topic and studies conducted in the area of internet use and student academic performance.