How to format it
- Write the full citation in your required style (APA, MLA or Chicago) with a hanging indent.
- Start the annotation on the next line, indented as a block (APA: 0.5 inch; MLA: 1 inch from the left margin, per the MLA Style Center).
- Alphabetise entries by author, exactly like a normal reference list, and title the page “Annotated Bibliography”.
Three kinds of annotation
| Kind | What it does |
|---|---|
| Summary | States the main argument, the evidence or method, and the conclusion. Neutral, third person. |
| Evaluative | Summarises, then judges: Is the author qualified? Is the evidence strong, recent, large enough? What are the limits? |
| Reflective | Summarises, then explains how the source shapes your own research — what it supports, challenges or leaves open. |
Example (APA, evaluative)
Annotated BibliographyAPA 7
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Kahneman, a psychologist and Nobel laureate in economics, synthesises decades of research on judgment into a model of two systems: fast, intuitive System 1 and slow, deliberate System 2. Drawing largely on experiments he conducted with Amos Tversky, he shows how System 1 produces predictable biases such as anchoring and loss aversion. The book is accessible and authoritative, although some of the priming studies it cites have since failed to replicate, so individual findings should be checked against newer work. It gives my paper its core framework for explaining exam-day decision errors.