Annotated Bibliography

Why?

Library research begins with a topic on which you want to find books, articles, and authoritative web documents. Creating an annotated bibliography as you discover new sources saves time and enhances the quality of your scholarship.

• Citations store details required for your formal bibliography.
• Annotations (summaries based on your readings) store notes in your own words that you can use in your narrative.

Brief quotations are allowed. Quote exactly and note the page numbers on which each quoted passage appears. Many respected scholars have been embarrassed by charges of plagiarism due to sloppy note taking. Don't let this happen to you!

Plagiarism = using the ideas and phrases of others as if they were your own, without attribution-- that is, without citing the sources on which you based your paper or presentation.

Each source (book, article, web document) in your bibliography is headed by a citation, with author, title, and publication details that allow anyone seeing your work to locate the same books and articles you used.

How?

Depending on details of your assignment, you can record citations in a formal style right away, or use a simple labeled form for your notes and convert to the appropriate standard later.

At Averett we use the APA (American Psychological Association) and MLA (Modern Language Association) citation styles. You professor will indicate which is appropriate for your class. Ask at the library reference desk for the APA and MLA style manuals. For examples and basic help, use JMU's Cite Check.

Book citations include author(s), title, publisher, place and year of publication. If you are referring to a chapter and not the whole book, note the chapter title, author, and pagination. Note any specific pages from which you are quoting or citing ideas.

Article citations include article author(s), article title, journal title, date of publication, volume and issue number, and the pages on which the article is located. Also note pages from which you are quoting or citing ideas. If you have a choice of HTML or PDF formats, choose PDF (Adobe Reader required). It will show the original pagination and accurately reproduce images and tables.

Most articles are available in subscription databases, such as Academic OneFile, ABI Inform, or Lexis Nexis. For these sources, it is sufficient to note the date on which you viewed the article and the name of the database, rather than URL of the article. (Your readers will probably not be able to link to article through the URL you see when reading it online.)

To cite a document from a web site, be sure to record both its URL and the date you viewed it. These are required in APA and MLA citations for electronic resources found on public web sites. The date viewed will be important when online content subsequently changes or disappears.

Your annotations record your own reflections on the article or book content in relation to your topic. You can then compare notes on different sources and use the citations to easily retrieve the items you read previously, or seek other sources on the same topic or by the same author.

Good luck with your project! For assistance, contact the Reference Desk.