How to: Cite Your Sources

Each annotation should analyze and evaluate, not just summarize, the resource you read.

 Annotations should reflect your own experience with a source – don’t rely on reviews or summaries. 

 Your annotations should address such areas as:

1. Arguments (what is the author arguing? do they do it well?);
2. Comparisons between this source and other sources you are annotating;
3. The relevance or usefulness of each source for your topic, and/or
4. Other information about the source that struck you as particularly notable or useful. 

Ideally, you should aim to cover at least a couple of these points and have ~150 words in each annotation. 

Make sure that your bibliography is in the correct style (probably MLA). This means that

1. Your citations should follow the MLA (or other style) standard for whatever type of source you are citing;
    
2. Each entry should be correctly formatted: with any second line of the citation and your annotations indented, in alphabetical order, and double-spaced if your style calls for it. 

Handouts with guidelines for writing an annotated bibliography in various styles, plus sample bibliographies: 

Other resources: