The purpose of the Annotated Bibliography is to summarize the sources that you have gathered to support your Research Proposal project. These summaries help you to think about the complex arguments presented in your sources and the massive information therein in terms of short, digestible articulations. In addition, these summaries will likely form the basis for Draft 1 of your Research Paper (the review of literature) that you will complete in Unit IV, which is largely comprised of summaries that are transitioned together and that form a conversation about the issue.
Description:
In this assignment, you will create an Annotated Bibliography consisting of five sources. Each entry will consist of a reference list citation that precedes a 100-150 word summary of the source. If each of the five entries is less than the word count, it is likely you have not fully developed your summary, and this lack of development can severely impact your grade for this assignment. Your Annotated Bibliography will include the elements listed below.
Elements:
Your Annotated Bibliography must contain specific elements. Your grade is largely based on your inclusion of these elements, as well as your ability to summarize your sources. For assistance, you may want to refer to the example in Chapter 20, Section 20f, of Strategies for Writing Successful Research Papers (pp. 436-438). The elements include the
following.
1. Cover page and APA formatting:
You will include an APA-style cover page for your Annotated Bibliography. See the example in The CSU APA
Guide (6th edition) on page 16. Your cover page should include the following: the title, your name, and the name
of your university (Columbia Southern University). Your title will appear in the running head which should include
up to 50 characters from the title of the paper, along with a sequential page number in the upper right-hand corner.
The following conventions should be followed as well. See the Annotated Bibliography example (linked below) for
guidance:
• The entries should be ordered in alphabetical order according to the first substantive word in the reference
list citation.
• The entire Annotated Bibliography should be double-spaced, with no additional spaces between entries.
• No reference list should be included with the Annotated Bibliography, as the entries themselves will contain
the reference list citation information.
• The first line of each reference list citation should be flush left with the left-hand margin (no indentation),
and the second and proceeding lines should be indented ½” from the left-hand margin (hanging indent of
one-half inch). EH 1020, English Composition II 7
• The summary paragraph begins on the line following the end of the reference. It lines up with the indented
portion of the reference, with the exception that the first line is indented an additional one-half inch. (Look
at the example to see how this formats.)
2. Entries:
Each of the five entries should begin with a reference list citation in APA format and be followed by a 100-150 word summary of the source’s information. An Annotated Bibliography summary should include the most important information from the text. Sometimes, this means that you will broadly summarize larger portions of text (as in main
ideas of a whole essay); other times, this means that you will focus on summarizing one paragraph out of an entire
source. Whenever you quote information, use APA in-text citations.