Skip to Main Content

Social Work

Find journal articles, books and more on social work topics

What is An Annotated Bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a list of sources (books, articles, websites, etc.) with short paragraph about each source. An annotated bibliography is sometimes a useful step before drafting a research paper, or it can stand alone as an overview of the research available on a topic.

Each source in the annotated bibliography has a citation - the information a reader needs to find the original source, in a consistent format to make that easier. These consistent formats are called citation styles.  The most common citation styles are MLA (Modern Language Association) for humanities, and APA (American Psychological Association) for social sciences.

Annotations are about 4 to 6 sentences long (roughly 150 words), and address:

  •     Main focus or purpose of the work
  •     Usefulness or relevance to your research topic 
  •     Special features of the work that were unique or helpful
  •     Background and credibility of the author
  •     Conclusions or observations reached by the author
  •     Conclusions or observations reached by you


Annotations versus Abstracts

Many scholarly articles start with an abstract, which is the author's summary of the article to help you decide whether you should read the entire article.  This abstract is not the same thing as an annotation.  The annotation needs to be in your own words, to explain the relevance of the source to your particular assignment or research question.

Refer to  Basham, Sherah L., Vivian P. Radcliff, and Sara L. Bryson. “How to Write an Annotated Bibliography.” Journal of Criminal Justice Education (2022): 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511253.2022.2131859 for a concise explanation of how to construct an annotated bibliography.

APA 7th Annotated Bibliography Examples

Book

Ontiveros, R. J. (2014). In the spirit of a new people: The cultural politics of the Chicano movement. New York University Press.
Ontiveros argues that the arts provide an expression of the Chicano movement that circumvents neoliberalism and connects historic struggles to current lived experience. Chicano artists have integrated environmentalism and feminism with the Chicano movement in print media, visual arts, theater, and novels since the 1970s. While focused on art, this book also provides a history of the coalition politics connecting the Chicano movement to other social justice struggles.

 

Journal article

Alvarez, N. & Mearns, J. (2014). The benefits of writing and performing in the spoken word poetry community. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 41(3), 263-268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2014.03.004
Prior research has shown narrative writing to help with making meaning out of trauma. This article uses grounded theory to analyze semi-structured interviews with ten spoken word poets.  Because spoken word poetry is performed live, it creates personal and community connections that enhance the emotional development and resolution offered by the practice of writing. The findings are limited by the small, nonrandom sample (all the participants were from the same community).

Acknowledgements

Content adapted from Research Strategies by Jamie Johnson at LibGuides, California State University, Northridge, reused by permission.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
.