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Social Work

What is an annotated bibliography?

What is an annotated bibliography?

“An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a brief  descriptive and evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited.” Reused with permission.

How do I write an annotated bibliography, step by step?

WKU Libraries has an online guide to APA 7th Annotated Bibliographies that takes you through the steps. 

The APA Manual, 7th Edition, secton 9.51 and figure 9.3, p. 307-308, gives general guidance, but your course instructor sets the guidelines for the type/number of sources and length of annotations. Check with Dr. Warfel for details.

How do I find 5 articles for my list?

  • For this assignment, please search for articles on your topic in the current professional literature. Library databases are a good place to search. Try some of the Databases listed in the Social Work Library Research Guide.
  • Find at least 5 good articles on your topic. For this assignment, they should be no older than 2012. Pick a few extras in case some don’t work out. Two need to come from the research literature. Articles from the Social Work literature are preferred. If you have trouble finding a Research or a Social Work Article, I have put together one-page tip sheets on identifying these. Save your articles where you can find them (hard drive, Google Doc, etc.) If you can't find enough Social Work articles, check with Dr. Warfel.

Put Citations in APA 7th Format

Create an APA 7th citation for each source in your Annotated Bibliography and list them alphabetically.   

How do I put my sources in APA 7th format?

Publication Manual, Chapter 10, p. 315-352, is authoritative source for APA. Full guide is print-only.

APA Style  APA online source with reference examples.

WKU Libraries has APA 7th citation examples for articles, books and Internet sources.

Several other sources can help put citations in APA 7th format. Click on tabs above to see more resources. Always double-check for accuracy. 

  • One-Search, Library Databases, and Google Scholar have a [cite] button
  • Internet help sites
  • Citation formatters
  • Reference manager such as Zotero or Endnote. Integrates with Word.

Example One: One-Search Cite button

Click [...] at upper right:

Then click the Cite " button:

Select [APA] and copy and paste your APA citation. Note that One-Search still uses 6th edition. Proofread carefully: capital letters, elements of citation correct, hanging indent, and DOI (if any):

Example Two: EBSCOhost cite button

Click title hyperlink to display full record:

Click [Cite] on right of full EBSCOhost record:

Then scroll to see APA citation:

 

Now use your critical thinking skills ... does this APA citation include the author, date, title, and source, formatted exactly like the examples from the Publication Manual and APA Style? Could your reader follow the URL or DOI (if any) to find this source?

Always check the APA template to make sure citation is correct. Our database has incorrectly added "libsrv.wku.edu" to the DOI. This is incorrect because someone not at WKU couldn't follow this link. Test by copying/pasting into a Web browser.

Here is corrected citation:

Tarnopolsky, A., Fletcher, N., Hollenberg, L., Lange, B., Smith, J., & Wolfe, J. (2005). Acoustics: The vocal tract and the sound of a didgeridoo. Nature, 436(7047), 39. https://doi.org/10.1038/43639a

Subjects: Social Work