This guide was designed by your friendly OU librarians to help students understand what an annotated bibliography is, why you should write one, and how to write one.
Annotated bibliographies are designed to help you learn more about your research topic. You will find, summarize, & evaluate articles and/or books that you would use for your selected topic.
RefWorks is a web-based bibliography and database manager that allows you to create your own personal database by importing references from text files or online databases and other various sources. You can use these references in writing papers and automatically format the paper and the bibliography in seconds.
Annotations become easy when you have done a close reading of your sources before you write:
1. Choose your bibliographic style
2. Annotate your bibliography using only one style, MLA, APA or another style
3. Do not mix citation styles
4. Organize your annotated bibliography in alphabetical order by author
5. Annotate your bibliography by summarizing the article cited in 5-6 sentences
6. Pay attention to overhanging citations, font use and double-spacing as is fitting with the citation style used