How to Write an APA-Style Annotated Bibliography for Online Sources

A list of references is an essential component to all formally written research publications. For the most part, the American Psychology Association (APA) dictates formal writing standards for the social sciences (e.g. psychology, biology, business), including guidelines for properly citing reference material.

Annotated bibliographies take citation a step further by briefly summarizing each reference. Typically, an author implements annotations so that she may later publish a stand-alone bibliography. However, incorporating annotations also may effectively improve the author's comprehensive research and aid the process of thesis development.

Instructions

  1. APA Style for Annotating Online Resources

    • 1
      Especially with an annotated bibliography, you want to be sure all of your references are absolutely essential to the work.

      Collect your data and begin to filter out unnecessary references. This is especially important with an annotated bibliography because it is far more detailed than a normal one.

    • 2

      Determine which type of annotation to use for each online entry. You may choose between indicative, a straight-forward list of significant topics and brief explanations; informative, a summary of the sourced topic; evaluative, an assessment of the source's strengths and weaknesses; or a combination using features of all types.

    • 3
      "Paragraph style" is one of three styles of annotation.

      Write the annotation in your preferred style. The three styles are telegraphic, phrases instead of sentences; complete sentences, grammatically correct but not verbose; and paragraph, more elaborate and descriptive.

    • 4

      Organize the bibliographic resources alphabetically, as follows:

      Name of Web site (NOT .com)[period] [parenthesis]Date of Web Publication/Content Update[parenthesis][period] Title of Article[period] Retrieved on Date[comma "from"] Web address [always ends in slash]

      Ex: Youth Group United. (Updated February 1, 2007). [Italics]How to Love Your Neighbor[EndItalics].
      Retrieved on September 1, 2008, from http://youthgroupunited.org/howtoloveyourneighbor/

    • 5

      Indent all lines that follow the first by four spaces. After citing the reference, you must begin a new line (with the same indentation) for the annotation. It should look something like this (if using the informative/sentence model):

      Youth Group United. (Updated February 1, 2007). [Italics]How to Love Your Neighbor[EndItalics].
      [INDENT] Retrieved on September 1, 2008, from http://youthgroupunited.org/howtoloveyourneighbor/
      [INDENT] This site was developed in 2002, to help document and follow the problems and solutions
      [INDENT] available, to today's youth culture ... .

    • 6

      Double-space between the entire annotated bibliography, including entries (do not quadruple space).

    • 7

      Divide the bibliography into sections if it is especially long, although the number of entries is subject to your discretion. Alphabetize each section separately.

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