2020).
Format | Author surname, initial. (Year) . Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year). |
Example | Google (2019) . Available at: https://policies.google.com/terms?hl=en-US (Accessed: 29 April 2020). |
Notes |
Format | Author surname, initial. (Year) ‘Article title’, , Date. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year). |
Example | Rakich, N. (2020) ‘How does Biden stack up to past Democratic nominees?’, , 28 April. Available at: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-does-biden-stack-up-to-past-democratic-nominees/ (Accessed: 29 April 2020). |
Notes |
Format | Author surname, initial. [username] (Year) or text [Website name] Date. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year). |
Example | Dorsey, J. [@jack] (2018) We’re committing Twitter to help increase the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation … [Twitter] 1 March. Available at: https://twitter.com/jack/status/969234275420655616 (Accessed: 29 April 2020). |
Notes |
Format | Author surname, initial. (Year) [Medium]. Institution, City or Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year). |
Example | Bosch, H. (1482) [Triptych]. Groeningemuseum, Bruges. |
Notes |
Format | Author surname, initial. (Year) . Date. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year). |
Example | Vox (2020) . 10 April. Available at: https://youtu.be/BE-cA4UK07c (Accessed: 29 April 2020). |
Notes |
Format | Author surname, initial. (Year) ‘Article title’, , date, p. page number. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year). |
Example | Butler, S. (2020) ‘Women’s fashion manufacturer to make reusable gowns for NHS’, , 28 April. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/28/womens-fashion-manufacturer-to-make-reusable-gowns-for-nhs (Accessed: 29 April 2020). |
Notes |
Format | Author surname, initial. (Year) ‘Article title’, , Volume(Issue) or (Month) or (Season), pp. page range. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year). |
Example | Newman, J. (2020) ‘For autistic youths entering adulthood, a new world of challenges awaits’, , (May), pp. 20–24. |
Notes |
When a source has up to three authors, list all of them in the order their names appear on the source. If there are four or more, give only the first name followed by ‘ et al. ’:
Number of authors | Reference example |
---|---|
1 author | Davis, V. (2019) … |
2 authors | Davis, V. and Barrett, M. (2019) … |
3 authors | Davis, V., Barrett, M. and McLachlan, F. (2019) … |
4+ authors | Davis, V. (2019) … |
Sometimes a source won’t list all the information you need for your reference. Here’s what to do when you don’t know the publication date or author of a source.
Some online sources, as well as historical documents, may lack a clear publication date. In these cases, you can replace the date in the reference list entry with the words ‘no date’. With online sources, you still include an access date at the end:
When a source doesn’t list an author, you can often list a corporate source as an author instead, as with ‘Scribbr’ in the above example. When that’s not possible, begin the entry with the title instead of the author:
Though the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there is a difference in meaning:
In Harvard referencing, up to three author names are included in an in-text citation or reference list entry. When there are four or more authors, include only the first, followed by ‘ et al. ’
In-text citation | Reference list | |
---|---|---|
1 author | (Smith, 2014) | Smith, T. (2014) … |
2 authors | (Smith and Jones, 2014) | Smith, T. and Jones, F. (2014) … |
3 authors | (Smith, Jones and Davies, 2014) | Smith, T., Jones, F. and Davies, S. (2014) … |
4+ authors | (Smith , 2014) | Smith, T. (2014) … |
In Harvard style referencing , to distinguish between two sources by the same author that were published in the same year, you add a different letter after the year for each source:
Add ‘a’ to the first one you cite, ‘b’ to the second, and so on. Do the same in your bibliography or reference list .
To create a hanging indent for your bibliography or reference list :
If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.
Caulfield, J. (2022, November 07). Harvard Style Bibliography | Format & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 16 September 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/referencing/harvard-bibliography/
Other students also liked, a quick guide to harvard referencing | citation examples, harvard in-text citation | a complete guide & examples, referencing books in harvard style | templates & examples, scribbr apa citation checker.
An innovative new tool that checks your APA citations with AI software. Say goodbye to inaccurate citations!
An APA format bibliography lists all of the sources that might be used in a paper. A bibliography can be a great tool to help you keep track of information during the research and writing process. In some cases, your instructor may require you to include a bibliography as part of your assignment.
A well-written APA format bibliography can help you keep track of information and sources as you research and write your psychology paper. To create a bibliography, gather up all of the sources that you might use in your paper. Create an APA format reference for each source and then write a brief annotation. Your annotation should be a brief summary of what each reference is about. You can quickly refer to these annotations When writing your paper and determine which to include.
An APA format bibliography is an alphabetical listing of all sources that might be used to write an academic paper, essay, article, or research paper—particularly work that is covering psychology or psychology-related topics. APA format is the official style of the American Psychological Association (APA). This format is used by many psychology professors, students, and researchers.
Even if it is not a required part of your assignment, writing a bibliography can help you keep track of your sources and make it much easier to create your final reference page in proper APA format.
A bibliography is similar in many ways to a reference section , but there are some important differences. While a reference section includes every source that was actually used in your paper, a bibliography may include sources that you considered using but may have dismissed because they were irrelevant or outdated.
Bibliographies can be a great way to keep track of information you might want to use in your paper and to organize the information that you find in different sources. The following are four steps you can follow to create your APA format bibliography.
Your working bibliography should be kept separate from the rest of your paper. Start it on a new page, with the title "Bibliography" centered at the top and in bold text. Some people use the title "References" instead, so it's best to check with your professor or instructor about which they prefer you to use.
Compile all the sources you might possibly use in your paper. While you might not use all of these sources in your paper, having a complete list will make it easier later on when you prepare your reference section.
Gathering your sources can be particularly helpful when outlining and writing your paper.
By quickly glancing through your working bibliography, you will be able to get a better idea of which sources will be the most appropriate to support your thesis and main points.
Your references should be listed alphabetically by the author’s last name, and they should be double-spaced. The first line of each reference should be flush left, while each additional line of a single reference should be a few spaces to the right of the left margin, which is known as a hanging indent.
The format of each source is as follows for academic journals:
The following examples are scholarly articles in academic journals, cited in APA format:
Visit the American Psychological Association's website for more information on citing other types of sources including online media, audiovisual media, and more.
Normally a bibliography contains only references' information, but in some cases you might decide to create an annotated bibliography. An annotation is a summary or evaluation of the source.
An annotation is a brief description of approximately 150 words describing the information in the source, your evaluation of its credibility, and how it pertains to your topic. Writing one of these for each piece of research will make your writing process faster and easier.
This step helpful in determining which sources to ultimately use in your paper. Your instructor may also require it as part of the assignment so they can assess your thought process and understanding of your topic.
One of the biggest reasons to create an APA format bibliography is simply to make the research and writing process easier.
If you do not have a comprehensive list of all of your references, you might find yourself scrambling to figure out where you found certain bits of information that you included in your paper.
A bibliography is also an important tool that your readers can use to access your sources.
While writing an annotated bibliography might not be required for your assignment, it can be a very useful step. The process of writing an annotation helps you learn more about your topic, develop a deeper understanding of the subject, and become better at evaluating various sources of information.
The following is an example of an APA format bibliography by the website EasyBib:
There are many online resources that demonstrate different formats of bibliographies, including the American Psychological Association website . Purdue University's Online Writing Lab also has examples of formatting an APA format bibliography.
Check out this video on their YouTube channel which provides detailed instructions on formatting an APA style bibliography in Microsoft Word.
You can check out the Purdue site for more information on writing an annotated APA bibliography as well.
If you are taking a psychology class, you may be asked to create a bibliography as part of the research paper writing process. Even if your instructor does not expressly require a bibliography, creating one can be a helpful way to help structure your research and make the writing process more manageable.
For psychology majors , it can be helpful to save any bibliographies you have written throughout your studies so that you can refer back to them later when studying for exams or writing papers for other psychology courses.
American Psychological Association. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association . 7th Edition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; 2020.
Masic I. The importance of proper citation of references in biomedical articles. Acta Inform Med . 2013;21(3):148–155. doi:10.5455/aim.2013.21.148-155
American Psychological Association. How do you format a bibliography in APA Style?
Cornell University Library. How to prepare an annotated bibliography: The annotated bibliography .
By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."
Do not try to “wow” your instructor with a long bibliography when your instructor requests only a works cited page. It is tempting, after doing a lot of work to research a paper, to try to include summaries on each source as you write your paper so that your instructor appreciates how much work you did. That is a trap you want to avoid. MLA style, the one that is most commonly followed in high schools and university writing courses, dictates that you include only the works you actually cited in your paper—not all those that you used.
Get 10% off with 24start discount code, assembling bibliographies and works cited.
The good news is that you do not have to memorize all the many ways the works cited entries should be written. Numerous helpful style guides are available to show you the information that should be included, in what order it should appear, and how to format it. The format often differs according to the style guide you are using. The Modern Language Association (MLA) follows a particular style that is a bit different from APA (American Psychological Association) style, and both are somewhat different from the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS). Always ask your teacher which style you should use.
A bibliography usually appears at the end of a paper on its own separate page. All bibliography entries—books, periodicals, Web sites, and nontext sources such radio broadcasts—are listed together in alphabetical order. Books and articles are alphabetized by the author’s last name.
Most teachers suggest that you follow a standard style for listing different types of sources. If your teacher asks you to use a different form, however, follow his or her instructions. Take pride in your bibliography. It represents some of the most important work you’ve done for your research paper—and using proper form shows that you are a serious and careful researcher.
A bibliography entry for a book begins with the author’s name, which is written in this order: last name, comma, first name, period. After the author’s name comes the title of the book. If you are handwriting your bibliography, underline each title. If you are working on a computer, put the book title in italicized type. Be sure to capitalize the words in the title correctly, exactly as they are written in the book itself. Following the title is the city where the book was published, followed by a colon, the name of the publisher, a comma, the date published, and a period. Here is an example:
Format : Author’s last name, first name. Book Title. Place of publication: publisher, date of publication.
A bibliography entry for a periodical differs slightly in form from a bibliography entry for a book. For a magazine article, start with the author’s last name first, followed by a comma, then the first name and a period. Next, write the title of the article in quotation marks, and include a period (or other closing punctuation) inside the closing quotation mark. The title of the magazine is next, underlined or in italic type, depending on whether you are handwriting or using a computer, followed by a period. The date and year, followed by a colon and the pages on which the article appeared, come last. Here is an example:
Format: Author’s last name, first name. “Title of the Article.” Magazine. Month and year of publication: page numbers.
For sources such as Web sites include the information a reader needs to find the source or to know where and when you found it. Always begin with the last name of the author, broadcaster, person you interviewed, and so on. Here is an example of a bibliography for a Web site:
Format : Author.“Document Title.” Publication or Web site title. Date of publication. Date of access.
Example : Dodman, Dr. Nicholas. “Dog-Human Communication.” Pet Place . 10 November 2006. 23 January 2014 < http://www.petplace.com/dogs/dog-human-communication-2/page1.aspx >
After completing the bibliography you can breathe a huge sigh of relief and pat yourself on the back. You probably plan to turn in your work in printed or handwritten form, but you also may be making an oral presentation. However you plan to present your paper, do your best to show it in its best light. You’ve put a great deal of work and thought into this assignment, so you want your paper to look and sound its best. You’ve completed your research paper!
Back to How To Write A Research Paper .
In-Text Citations Reference List Formatting Your Paper
This guide is a quick introduction to the APA 7th edition citation style. APA is a citation style developed by the American Psychological Association and is primarily used in the Social Sciences.
Video from CSU Dominguez Hills University Library .
In-text citations are short citations in parentheses that you will include in the body of your paper or assignment. They appear at the end of a sentence or paragraph in which you have either directly quoted or paraphrased an outside source.
(Last Name, Year, p. Page Number)
If you mention the author's name in the sentence or paragraph, include the publication year in parentheses directly after the author's name, and then include only the page number after the quote. If a source does not have page numbers, such as a webpage, you may skip the page number.
"Culture forms our beliefs" (Anzaldúa, 2012, p. 38).
According to Anzaldúa (2012), "culture forms our beliefs" (p. 38).
(Anzaldúa, 2012, p. 30)
(Last Name & Last Name, Year, p. Page Number)
(Wykes & Gunter, 2012, p. 53)
(First Author's Last Name et al., Year, p. Page Number)
(Chan et al., 2022, p. 97)
(Group Name [Abbreviation if Any], Year, p. Page Number)
If a group author uses an abbreviation, you can introduce the abbreviation in brackets the first time you cite them; in subsequent citations, you can use only the abbreviation.
(Calgary Educational Partnership Foundation, 1996, p. 230)
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2019) After the first citation: (CDC, 2019).
If your full citation for a group author starts with the title rather than the group's name, follow the "No Author" in-text citation rules instead.
( Title of Longer Work or "Title of Shorter Work," Year, p. Page Number)
( Fair Housing, 1985, p. 15)
("How to Teach," 2016)
For more guidelines and examples, check out the Purdue OWL In-Text Citation Guide .
Your Reference List will appear at the end of your paper or project, and will contain a list of citations in alphabetical order corresponding to the in-text citations you used in the body of your project. Each citation will include the complete publication information for that source, so that anyone may find and check the sources.
The format for your citations will differ depending on the type of source you are citing. Please select your source type below for detailed instructions.
Not sure what type of source you're trying to cite? Check out How to Identify Source Types .
For detailed instructions on how to format your paper in APA 7th style, please visit Formatting Your Paper .
Sample bibliography: apa.
The basic format for a book citation requires listing the author's name, the title of the book, the publisher's name, and the date of publication. Edited books, when cited in full, will list the editor's name instead of an author’s name.
Becsey, L., Wachsberger, P., Samuels, S., et al (Directors). (2008). In the valley of Elah . [DVD]. Warner Home Video.
Ginsberg, J. P., Ayers, E., Burriss, L., & Powell, D. A. (2008). Discriminative delay Pavlovian eye-blink conditioning in veterans with and without post-traumatic stress disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders , 22 , 809-823. https://doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2007.08.009
Glantz, A. (2009). The war comes home: Washington's battle against America's veterans . University of California Press.
Jakupcak, M., Luterek, J., Hunt, S., Conybeare, D., & McFall, M. (2008). Post-traumatic stress and its relationship to physical health functioning in a sample of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans seeking post-deployment VA health care. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease , 196 , 425-428.
Jensen, G. & Wiest, A. A. (2001). War in the age of technology myriad faces of modern armed conflict . New York University Press.
Killgore, W. D. S., Cotting, D. I., Thomas, J. L., Cox, A. L., McGurk, D., Vo, A. H., et al. (2008). Post-combat invincibility: Violent combat experiences are associated with increased risk-taking propensity following deployment. Journal of Psychiatric Research , 42 (13), 1112-1121. https://doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2008.01.001
Monson, C. M., Fredman, S. J., & Adair, K. C. (2008). Cognitive-behavioral conjoint therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder: Application to operation enduring and Iraqi freedom veterans. Journal of Clinical Psychology , 64 , 958-971. https://doi:10.1002/jclp.20511
Paulson, D. S., & Krippner, S. (2007). Haunted by combat : Understanding PTSD in war veterans including women, reservists, and those coming back from Iraq . Praeger Security International.
Tanielian, T. L., Jaycox, L., & Rand Corporation. (2008). Invisible wounds of war: Psychological and cognitive injuries, their consequences, and services to assist recovery . Rand.
United States. Congress. House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. (2007). Working in a war zone: Post traumatic stress disorder in civilians returning from Iraq . G.P.O.
Van Winkle, C. (2009). Soft spots: A marine's memoir of combat and post-traumatic stress disorder . St. Martin's Press.
This page contains sample papers formatted in seventh edition APA Style. The sample papers show the format that authors should use to submit a manuscript for publication in a professional journal and that students should use to submit a paper to an instructor for a course assignment. You can download the Word files to use as templates and edit them as needed for the purposes of your own papers.
Most guidelines in the Publication Manual apply to both professional manuscripts and student papers. However, there are specific guidelines for professional papers versus student papers, including professional and student title page formats. All authors should check with the person or entity to whom they are submitting their paper (e.g., publisher or instructor) for guidelines that are different from or in addition to those specified by APA Style.
The following two sample papers were published in annotated form in the Publication Manual and are reproduced here as PDFs for your ease of use. The annotations draw attention to content and formatting and provide the relevant sections of the Publication Manual (7th ed.) to consult for more information.
We also offer these sample papers in Microsoft Word (.docx) format with the annotations as comments to the text.
Finally, we offer these sample papers in Microsoft Word (.docx) format without the annotations.
These sample papers demonstrate APA Style formatting standards for different professional paper types. Professional papers can contain many different elements depending on the nature of the work. Authors seeking publication should refer to the journal’s instructions for authors or manuscript submission guidelines for specific requirements and/or sections to include.
Sample papers are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Chapter 2 and the Concise Guide Chapter 1
View all instructional aids
These sample papers demonstrate APA Style formatting standards for different student paper types. Students may write the same types of papers as professional authors (e.g., quantitative studies, literature reviews) or other types of papers for course assignments (e.g., reaction or response papers, discussion posts), dissertations, and theses.
APA does not set formal requirements for the nature or contents of an APA Style student paper. Students should follow the guidelines and requirements of their instructor, department, and/or institution when writing papers. For instance, an abstract and keywords are not required for APA Style student papers, although an instructor may request them in student papers that are longer or more complex. Specific questions about a paper being written for a course assignment should be directed to the instructor or institution assigning the paper.
Although published articles differ in format from manuscripts submitted for publication or student papers (e.g., different line spacing, font, margins, and column format), articles published in APA journals provide excellent demonstrations of APA Style in action.
APA journals began publishing papers in seventh edition APA Style in 2020. Professional authors should check the author submission guidelines for the journal to which they want to submit their paper for any journal-specific style requirements.
Quantitative professional paper template: Adapted from “Fake News, Fast and Slow: Deliberation Reduces Belief in False (but Not True) News Headlines,” by B. Bago, D. G. Rand, and G. Pennycook, 2020, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , 149 (8), pp. 1608–1613 ( https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000729 ). Copyright 2020 by the American Psychological Association.
Qualitative professional paper template: Adapted from “‘My Smartphone Is an Extension of Myself’: A Holistic Qualitative Exploration of the Impact of Using a Smartphone,” by L. J. Harkin and D. Kuss, 2020, Psychology of Popular Media , 10 (1), pp. 28–38 ( https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000278 ). Copyright 2020 by the American Psychological Association.
Mixed methods professional paper template: Adapted from “‘I Am a Change Agent’: A Mixed Methods Analysis of Students’ Social Justice Value Orientation in an Undergraduate Community Psychology Course,” by D. X. Henderson, A. T. Majors, and M. Wright, 2019, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology , 7 (1), 68–80. ( https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000171 ). Copyright 2019 by the American Psychological Association.
Literature review professional paper template: Adapted from “Rethinking Emotions in the Context of Infants’ Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Interest and Positive Emotions,” by S. I. Hammond and J. K. Drummond, 2019, Developmental Psychology , 55 (9), pp. 1882–1888 ( https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000685 ). Copyright 2019 by the American Psychological Association.
Review professional paper template: Adapted from “Joining the Conversation: Teaching Students to Think and Communicate Like Scholars,” by E. L. Parks, 2022, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology , 8 (1), pp. 70–78 ( https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000193 ). Copyright 2020 by the American Psychological Association.
These papers came from real students who gave their permission to have them edited and posted by APA.
Annotated bibliography in apa style, what is an annotated bibliography.
An annotated bibliography is essentially a list of citations to books, articles, and other documents, e-resources--(websites for example), and media (film, music, television.) Following the citation is a brief (usually about 150 words) descriptive and evaluative paragraph of the work. These paragraphs are the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to help you manage your research and also to inform your professor of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited.
Example of a book citation with annotation.
Liroff, R. A., & G. G. Davis. (1981). Protecting open space: Land use control in the Adirondack Park. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
This book describes the implementation of regional planning and land use regulation in the Adirondack Park in upstate New York. The authors provide program evaluations of the Adirondack Park Agency's regulatory and local planning assistance programs.
Gottlieb, P. D. (1995). The "golden egg" as a natural resource: Toward a normative theory of growth management. Society and Natural Resources, 8, (5): 49-56.
This article explains the dilemma faced by North American suburbs, which demand both preservation of local amenities (to protect the quality of life) and physical development (to expand the tax base). Growth management has been proposed as a policy solution to this dilemma. An analogy is made between this approach and resource economics. The author concludes that the growth management debate raises legitimate issues of sustainability and efficiency.
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Adapted from Olin & Uris Libraries, Cornell University, Cornell, NY https://guides.library.cornell.edu/annotatedbibliography This link opens in a new window
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Below you will find sample annotations from annotated bibliographies, each with a different research project. Remember that the annotations you include in your own bibliography should reflect your research project and/or the guidelines of your assignment.
As mentioned elsewhere in this resource, depending on the purpose of your bibliography, some annotations may summarize, some may assess or evaluate a source, and some may reflect on the source’s possible uses for the project at hand. Some annotations may address all three of these steps. Consider the purpose of your annotated bibliography and/or your instructor’s directions when deciding how much information to include in your annotations.
Please keep in mind that all your text, including the write-up beneath the citation, must be indented so that the author's last name is the only text that is flush left.
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life . Anchor Books, 1995.
Lamott's book offers honest advice on the nature of a writing life, complete with its insecurities and failures. Taking a humorous approach to the realities of being a writer, the chapters in Lamott's book are wry and anecdotal and offer advice on everything from plot development to jealousy, from perfectionism to struggling with one's own internal critic.
In the process, Lamott includes writing exercises designed to be both productive and fun. Lamott offers sane advice for those struggling with the anxieties of writing, but her main project seems to be offering the reader a reality check regarding writing, publishing, and struggling with one's own imperfect humanity in the process. Rather than a practical handbook to producing and/or publishing, this text is indispensable because of its honest perspective, its down-to-earth humor, and its encouraging approach.
Chapters in this text could easily be included in the curriculum for a writing class. Several of the chapters in Part 1 address the writing process and would serve to generate discussion on students' own drafting and revising processes. Some of the writing exercises would also be appropriate for generating classroom writing exercises. Students should find Lamott's style both engaging and enjoyable.
In the sample annotation above, the writer includes three paragraphs: a summary, an evaluation of the text, and a reflection on its applicability to his/her own research, respectively.
For information on formatting MLA citations, see our MLA 9th Edition (2021) Formatting and Style Guide .
Ehrenreich, B. (2001). Nickel and dimed: On (not) getting by in America . Henry Holt and Company.
In this book of nonfiction based on the journalist's experiential research, Ehrenreich attempts to ascertain whether it is currently possible for an individual to live on a minimum-wage in America. Taking jobs as a waitress, a maid in a cleaning service, and a Walmart sales employee, the author summarizes and reflects on her work, her relationships with fellow workers, and her financial struggles in each situation.
An experienced journalist, Ehrenreich is aware of the limitations of her experiment and the ethical implications of her experiential research tactics and reflects on these issues in the text. The author is forthcoming about her methods and supplements her experiences with scholarly research on her places of employment, the economy, and the rising cost of living in America. Ehrenreich’s project is timely, descriptive, and well-researched.
The annotation above both summarizes and assesses the book in the citation. The first paragraph provides a brief summary of the author's project in the book, covering the main points of the work. The second paragraph points out the project’s strengths and evaluates its methods and presentation. This particular annotation does not reflect on the source’s potential importance or usefulness for this person’s own research.
For information on formatting APA citations, see our APA Formatting and Style Guide .
Davidson, Hilda Ellis. Roles of the Northern Goddess . London: Routledge, 1998.
Davidson's book provides a thorough examination of the major roles filled by the numerous pagan goddesses of Northern Europe in everyday life, including their roles in hunting, agriculture, domestic arts like weaving, the household, and death. The author discusses relevant archaeological evidence, patterns of symbol and ritual, and previous research. The book includes a number of black and white photographs of relevant artifacts.
This annotation includes only one paragraph, a summary of the book. It provides a concise description of the project and the book's project and its major features.
For information on formatting Chicago Style citations, see our Chicago Manual of Style resources.
Purdue online writing lab.
What is an Annotated Bibliography?
An annotated bibliography is a list of sources used for researching a topic. Each source is briefly summarized and evaluated.
Why Write an Annotated Bibliography?
Annotated bibliographies provide an opportunity for you to learn more about your research topic, assess and evaluate sources, and discuss the ways in which each source contributes to the larger context of your paper.
How to Write an Annotated Bibliography:
Writing an annotated bibliography begins with research and reading.
Citing sources, general citation guides.
Citations provide information to help your audience locate the sources you consulted when writing a paper or preparing a presentation. Improperly cited sources can result in plagiarism violations. However, the best way to avoid plagiarism is to properly cite every source used in your work. For more information about plagiarism and academic integrity, check out the Boston University Academic Conduct Code .
Some of your instructors will specify which citation format you should use, while others will tell you to choose your own citation format as long as you use it consistently. Learn more about creating bibliographies and getting started with citation managers.
The most common citation formats are:
MLA (Modern Language Association) style, which is primarily used for papers in the humanities;
APA (American Psychological Association) style, which is primarily used for papers in the social sciences;
Chicago style (The Chicago Manual of Style), which is used for both humanities and social science papers.
CSE (Council of Science Editors) style, which is used for scientific publishing.
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Academic journals, archives, and repositories are seeing an increasing number of questionable research papers clearly produced using generative AI. They are often created with widely available, general-purpose AI applications, most likely ChatGPT, and mimic scientific writing. Google Scholar easily locates and lists these questionable papers alongside reputable, quality-controlled research. Our analysis of a selection of questionable GPT-fabricated scientific papers found in Google Scholar shows that many are about applied, often controversial topics susceptible to disinformation: the environment, health, and computing. The resulting enhanced potential for malicious manipulation of society’s evidence base, particularly in politically divisive domains, is a growing concern.
Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås, Sweden
Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University, Sweden
Division of Environmental Communication, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
The use of ChatGPT to generate text for academic papers has raised concerns about research integrity. Discussion of this phenomenon is ongoing in editorials, commentaries, opinion pieces, and on social media (Bom, 2023; Stokel-Walker, 2024; Thorp, 2023). There are now several lists of papers suspected of GPT misuse, and new papers are constantly being added. 1 See for example Academ-AI, https://www.academ-ai.info/ , and Retraction Watch, https://retractionwatch.com/papers-and-peer-reviews-with-evidence-of-chatgpt-writing/ . While many legitimate uses of GPT for research and academic writing exist (Huang & Tan, 2023; Kitamura, 2023; Lund et al., 2023), its undeclared use—beyond proofreading—has potentially far-reaching implications for both science and society, but especially for their relationship. It, therefore, seems important to extend the discussion to one of the most accessible and well-known intermediaries between science, but also certain types of misinformation, and the public, namely Google Scholar, also in response to the legitimate concerns that the discussion of generative AI and misinformation needs to be more nuanced and empirically substantiated (Simon et al., 2023).
Google Scholar, https://scholar.google.com , is an easy-to-use academic search engine. It is available for free, and its index is extensive (Gusenbauer & Haddaway, 2020). It is also often touted as a credible source for academic literature and even recommended in library guides, by media and information literacy initiatives, and fact checkers (Tripodi et al., 2023). However, Google Scholar lacks the transparency and adherence to standards that usually characterize citation databases. Instead, Google Scholar uses automated crawlers, like Google’s web search engine (Martín-Martín et al., 2021), and the inclusion criteria are based on primarily technical standards, allowing any individual author—with or without scientific affiliation—to upload papers to be indexed (Google Scholar Help, n.d.). It has been shown that Google Scholar is susceptible to manipulation through citation exploits (Antkare, 2020) and by providing access to fake scientific papers (Dadkhah et al., 2017). A large part of Google Scholar’s index consists of publications from established scientific journals or other forms of quality-controlled, scholarly literature. However, the index also contains a large amount of gray literature, including student papers, working papers, reports, preprint servers, and academic networking sites, as well as material from so-called “questionable” academic journals, including paper mills. The search interface does not offer the possibility to filter the results meaningfully by material type, publication status, or form of quality control, such as limiting the search to peer-reviewed material.
To understand the occurrence of ChatGPT (co-)authored work in Google Scholar’s index, we scraped it for publications, including one of two common ChatGPT responses (see Appendix A) that we encountered on social media and in media reports (DeGeurin, 2024). The results of our descriptive statistical analyses showed that around 62% did not declare the use of GPTs. Most of these GPT-fabricated papers were found in non-indexed journals and working papers, but some cases included research published in mainstream scientific journals and conference proceedings. 2 Indexed journals mean scholarly journals indexed by abstract and citation databases such as Scopus and Web of Science, where the indexation implies journals with high scientific quality. Non-indexed journals are journals that fall outside of this indexation. More than half (57%) of these GPT-fabricated papers concerned policy-relevant subject areas susceptible to influence operations. To avoid increasing the visibility of these publications, we abstained from referencing them in this research note. However, we have made the data available in the Harvard Dataverse repository.
The publications were related to three issue areas—health (14.5%), environment (19.5%) and computing (23%)—with key terms such “healthcare,” “COVID-19,” or “infection”for health-related papers, and “analysis,” “sustainable,” and “global” for environment-related papers. In several cases, the papers had titles that strung together general keywords and buzzwords, thus alluding to very broad and current research. These terms included “biology,” “telehealth,” “climate policy,” “diversity,” and “disrupting,” to name just a few. While the study’s scope and design did not include a detailed analysis of which parts of the articles included fabricated text, our dataset did contain the surrounding sentences for each occurrence of the suspicious phrases that formed the basis for our search and subsequent selection. Based on that, we can say that the phrases occurred in most sections typically found in scientific publications, including the literature review, methods, conceptual and theoretical frameworks, background, motivation or societal relevance, and even discussion. This was confirmed during the joint coding, where we read and discussed all articles. It became clear that not just the text related to the telltale phrases was created by GPT, but that almost all articles in our sample of questionable articles likely contained traces of GPT-fabricated text everywhere.
Evidence hacking and backfiring effects
Generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) can be used to produce texts that mimic scientific writing. These texts, when made available online—as we demonstrate—leak into the databases of academic search engines and other parts of the research infrastructure for scholarly communication. This development exacerbates problems that were already present with less sophisticated text generators (Antkare, 2020; Cabanac & Labbé, 2021). Yet, the public release of ChatGPT in 2022, together with the way Google Scholar works, has increased the likelihood of lay people (e.g., media, politicians, patients, students) coming across questionable (or even entirely GPT-fabricated) papers and other problematic research findings. Previous research has emphasized that the ability to determine the value and status of scientific publications for lay people is at stake when misleading articles are passed off as reputable (Haider & Åström, 2017) and that systematic literature reviews risk being compromised (Dadkhah et al., 2017). It has also been highlighted that Google Scholar, in particular, can be and has been exploited for manipulating the evidence base for politically charged issues and to fuel conspiracy narratives (Tripodi et al., 2023). Both concerns are likely to be magnified in the future, increasing the risk of what we suggest calling evidence hacking —the strategic and coordinated malicious manipulation of society’s evidence base.
The authority of quality-controlled research as evidence to support legislation, policy, politics, and other forms of decision-making is undermined by the presence of undeclared GPT-fabricated content in publications professing to be scientific. Due to the large number of archives, repositories, mirror sites, and shadow libraries to which they spread, there is a clear risk that GPT-fabricated, questionable papers will reach audiences even after a possible retraction. There are considerable technical difficulties involved in identifying and tracing computer-fabricated papers (Cabanac & Labbé, 2021; Dadkhah et al., 2023; Jones, 2024), not to mention preventing and curbing their spread and uptake.
However, as the rise of the so-called anti-vaxx movement during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing obstruction and denial of climate change show, retracting erroneous publications often fuels conspiracies and increases the following of these movements rather than stopping them. To illustrate this mechanism, climate deniers frequently question established scientific consensus by pointing to other, supposedly scientific, studies that support their claims. Usually, these are poorly executed, not peer-reviewed, based on obsolete data, or even fraudulent (Dunlap & Brulle, 2020). A similar strategy is successful in the alternative epistemic world of the global anti-vaccination movement (Carrion, 2018) and the persistence of flawed and questionable publications in the scientific record already poses significant problems for health research, policy, and lawmakers, and thus for society as a whole (Littell et al., 2024). Considering that a person’s support for “doing your own research” is associated with increased mistrust in scientific institutions (Chinn & Hasell, 2023), it will be of utmost importance to anticipate and consider such backfiring effects already when designing a technical solution, when suggesting industry or legal regulation, and in the planning of educational measures.
Recommendations
Solutions should be based on simultaneous considerations of technical, educational, and regulatory approaches, as well as incentives, including social ones, across the entire research infrastructure. Paying attention to how these approaches and incentives relate to each other can help identify points and mechanisms for disruption. Recognizing fraudulent academic papers must happen alongside understanding how they reach their audiences and what reasons there might be for some of these papers successfully “sticking around.” A possible way to mitigate some of the risks associated with GPT-fabricated scholarly texts finding their way into academic search engine results would be to provide filtering options for facets such as indexed journals, gray literature, peer-review, and similar on the interface of publicly available academic search engines. Furthermore, evaluation tools for indexed journals 3 Such as LiU Journal CheckUp, https://ep.liu.se/JournalCheckup/default.aspx?lang=eng . could be integrated into the graphical user interfaces and the crawlers of these academic search engines. To enable accountability, it is important that the index (database) of such a search engine is populated according to criteria that are transparent, open to scrutiny, and appropriate to the workings of science and other forms of academic research. Moreover, considering that Google Scholar has no real competitor, there is a strong case for establishing a freely accessible, non-specialized academic search engine that is not run for commercial reasons but for reasons of public interest. Such measures, together with educational initiatives aimed particularly at policymakers, science communicators, journalists, and other media workers, will be crucial to reducing the possibilities for and effects of malicious manipulation or evidence hacking. It is important not to present this as a technical problem that exists only because of AI text generators but to relate it to the wider concerns in which it is embedded. These range from a largely dysfunctional scholarly publishing system (Haider & Åström, 2017) and academia’s “publish or perish” paradigm to Google’s near-monopoly and ideological battles over the control of information and ultimately knowledge. Any intervention is likely to have systemic effects; these effects need to be considered and assessed in advance and, ideally, followed up on.
Our study focused on a selection of papers that were easily recognizable as fraudulent. We used this relatively small sample as a magnifying glass to examine, delineate, and understand a problem that goes beyond the scope of the sample itself, which however points towards larger concerns that require further investigation. The work of ongoing whistleblowing initiatives 4 Such as Academ-AI, https://www.academ-ai.info/ , and Retraction Watch, https://retractionwatch.com/papers-and-peer-reviews-with-evidence-of-chatgpt-writing/ . , recent media reports of journal closures (Subbaraman, 2024), or GPT-related changes in word use and writing style (Cabanac et al., 2021; Stokel-Walker, 2024) suggest that we only see the tip of the iceberg. There are already more sophisticated cases (Dadkhah et al., 2023) as well as cases involving fabricated images (Gu et al., 2022). Our analysis shows that questionable and potentially manipulative GPT-fabricated papers permeate the research infrastructure and are likely to become a widespread phenomenon. Our findings underline that the risk of fake scientific papers being used to maliciously manipulate evidence (see Dadkhah et al., 2017) must be taken seriously. Manipulation may involve undeclared automatic summaries of texts, inclusion in literature reviews, explicit scientific claims, or the concealment of errors in studies so that they are difficult to detect in peer review. However, the mere possibility of these things happening is a significant risk in its own right that can be strategically exploited and will have ramifications for trust in and perception of science. Society’s methods of evaluating sources and the foundations of media and information literacy are under threat and public trust in science is at risk of further erosion, with far-reaching consequences for society in dealing with information disorders. To address this multifaceted problem, we first need to understand why it exists and proliferates.
Finding 1: 139 GPT-fabricated, questionable papers were found and listed as regular results on the Google Scholar results page. Non-indexed journals dominate.
Most questionable papers we found were in non-indexed journals or were working papers, but we did also find some in established journals, publications, conferences, and repositories. We found a total of 139 papers with a suspected deceptive use of ChatGPT or similar LLM applications (see Table 1). Out of these, 19 were in indexed journals, 89 were in non-indexed journals, 19 were student papers found in university databases, and 12 were working papers (mostly in preprint databases). Table 1 divides these papers into categories. Health and environment papers made up around 34% (47) of the sample. Of these, 66% were present in non-indexed journals.
Indexed journals* | 5 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 19 |
Non-indexed journals | 18 | 18 | 13 | 40 | 89 |
Student papers | 4 | 3 | 1 | 11 | 19 |
Working papers | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 12 |
Total | 32 | 27 | 20 | 60 | 139 |
Finding 2: GPT-fabricated, questionable papers are disseminated online, permeating the research infrastructure for scholarly communication, often in multiple copies. Applied topics with practical implications dominate.
The 20 papers concerning health-related issues are distributed across 20 unique domains, accounting for 46 URLs. The 27 papers dealing with environmental issues can be found across 26 unique domains, accounting for 56 URLs. Most of the identified papers exist in multiple copies and have already spread to several archives, repositories, and social media. It would be difficult, or impossible, to remove them from the scientific record.
As apparent from Table 2, GPT-fabricated, questionable papers are seeping into most parts of the online research infrastructure for scholarly communication. Platforms on which identified papers have appeared include ResearchGate, ORCiD, Journal of Population Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology (JPTCP), Easychair, Frontiers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer (IEEE), and X/Twitter. Thus, even if they are retracted from their original source, it will prove very difficult to track, remove, or even just mark them up on other platforms. Moreover, unless regulated, Google Scholar will enable their continued and most likely unlabeled discoverability.
Environment | researchgate.net (13) | orcid.org (4) | easychair.org (3) | ijope.com* (3) | publikasiindonesia.id (3) |
Health | researchgate.net (15) | ieee.org (4) | twitter.com (3) | jptcp.com** (2) | frontiersin.org (2) |
A word rain visualization (Centre for Digital Humanities Uppsala, 2023), which combines word prominences through TF-IDF 5 Term frequency–inverse document frequency , a method for measuring the significance of a word in a document compared to its frequency across all documents in a collection. scores with semantic similarity of the full texts of our sample of GPT-generated articles that fall into the “Environment” and “Health” categories, reflects the two categories in question. However, as can be seen in Figure 1, it also reveals overlap and sub-areas. The y-axis shows word prominences through word positions and font sizes, while the x-axis indicates semantic similarity. In addition to a certain amount of overlap, this reveals sub-areas, which are best described as two distinct events within the word rain. The event on the left bundles terms related to the development and management of health and healthcare with “challenges,” “impact,” and “potential of artificial intelligence”emerging as semantically related terms. Terms related to research infrastructures, environmental, epistemic, and technological concepts are arranged further down in the same event (e.g., “system,” “climate,” “understanding,” “knowledge,” “learning,” “education,” “sustainable”). A second distinct event further to the right bundles terms associated with fish farming and aquatic medicinal plants, highlighting the presence of an aquaculture cluster. Here, the prominence of groups of terms such as “used,” “model,” “-based,” and “traditional” suggests the presence of applied research on these topics. The two events making up the word rain visualization, are linked by a less dominant but overlapping cluster of terms related to “energy” and “water.”
The bar chart of the terms in the paper subset (see Figure 2) complements the word rain visualization by depicting the most prominent terms in the full texts along the y-axis. Here, word prominences across health and environment papers are arranged descendingly, where values outside parentheses are TF-IDF values (relative frequencies) and values inside parentheses are raw term frequencies (absolute frequencies).
Finding 3: Google Scholar presents results from quality-controlled and non-controlled citation databases on the same interface, providing unfiltered access to GPT-fabricated questionable papers.
Google Scholar’s central position in the publicly accessible scholarly communication infrastructure, as well as its lack of standards, transparency, and accountability in terms of inclusion criteria, has potentially serious implications for public trust in science. This is likely to exacerbate the already-known potential to exploit Google Scholar for evidence hacking (Tripodi et al., 2023) and will have implications for any attempts to retract or remove fraudulent papers from their original publication venues. Any solution must consider the entirety of the research infrastructure for scholarly communication and the interplay of different actors, interests, and incentives.
We searched and scraped Google Scholar using the Python library Scholarly (Cholewiak et al., 2023) for papers that included specific phrases known to be common responses from ChatGPT and similar applications with the same underlying model (GPT3.5 or GPT4): “as of my last knowledge update” and/or “I don’t have access to real-time data” (see Appendix A). This facilitated the identification of papers that likely used generative AI to produce text, resulting in 227 retrieved papers. The papers’ bibliographic information was automatically added to a spreadsheet and downloaded into Zotero. 6 An open-source reference manager, https://zotero.org .
We employed multiple coding (Barbour, 2001) to classify the papers based on their content. First, we jointly assessed whether the paper was suspected of fraudulent use of ChatGPT (or similar) based on how the text was integrated into the papers and whether the paper was presented as original research output or the AI tool’s role was acknowledged. Second, in analyzing the content of the papers, we continued the multiple coding by classifying the fraudulent papers into four categories identified during an initial round of analysis—health, environment, computing, and others—and then determining which subjects were most affected by this issue (see Table 1). Out of the 227 retrieved papers, 88 papers were written with legitimate and/or declared use of GPTs (i.e., false positives, which were excluded from further analysis), and 139 papers were written with undeclared and/or fraudulent use (i.e., true positives, which were included in further analysis). The multiple coding was conducted jointly by all authors of the present article, who collaboratively coded and cross-checked each other’s interpretation of the data simultaneously in a shared spreadsheet file. This was done to single out coding discrepancies and settle coding disagreements, which in turn ensured methodological thoroughness and analytical consensus (see Barbour, 2001). Redoing the category coding later based on our established coding schedule, we achieved an intercoder reliability (Cohen’s kappa) of 0.806 after eradicating obvious differences.
The ranking algorithm of Google Scholar prioritizes highly cited and older publications (Martín-Martín et al., 2016). Therefore, the position of the articles on the search engine results pages was not particularly informative, considering the relatively small number of results in combination with the recency of the publications. Only the query “as of my last knowledge update” had more than two search engine result pages. On those, questionable articles with undeclared use of GPTs were evenly distributed across all result pages (min: 4, max: 9, mode: 8), with the proportion of undeclared use being slightly higher on average on later search result pages.
To understand how the papers making fraudulent use of generative AI were disseminated online, we programmatically searched for the paper titles (with exact string matching) in Google Search from our local IP address (see Appendix B) using the googlesearch – python library(Vikramaditya, 2020). We manually verified each search result to filter out false positives—results that were not related to the paper—and then compiled the most prominent URLs by field. This enabled the identification of other platforms through which the papers had been spread. We did not, however, investigate whether copies had spread into SciHub or other shadow libraries, or if they were referenced in Wikipedia.
We used descriptive statistics to count the prevalence of the number of GPT-fabricated papers across topics and venues and top domains by subject. The pandas software library for the Python programming language (The pandas development team, 2024) was used for this part of the analysis. Based on the multiple coding, paper occurrences were counted in relation to their categories, divided into indexed journals, non-indexed journals, student papers, and working papers. The schemes, subdomains, and subdirectories of the URL strings were filtered out while top-level domains and second-level domains were kept, which led to normalizing domain names. This, in turn, allowed the counting of domain frequencies in the environment and health categories. To distinguish word prominences and meanings in the environment and health-related GPT-fabricated questionable papers, a semantically-aware word cloud visualization was produced through the use of a word rain (Centre for Digital Humanities Uppsala, 2023) for full-text versions of the papers. Font size and y-axis positions indicate word prominences through TF-IDF scores for the environment and health papers (also visualized in a separate bar chart with raw term frequencies in parentheses), and words are positioned along the x-axis to reflect semantic similarity (Skeppstedt et al., 2024), with an English Word2vec skip gram model space (Fares et al., 2017). An English stop word list was used, along with a manually produced list including terms such as “https,” “volume,” or “years.”
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This research has been supported by Mistra, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, through the research program Mistra Environmental Communication (Haider, Ekström, Rödl) and the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation [2020.0004] (Söderström).
The authors declare no competing interests.
The research described in this article was carried out under Swedish legislation. According to the relevant EU and Swedish legislation (2003:460) on the ethical review of research involving humans (“Ethical Review Act”), the research reported on here is not subject to authorization by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (“etikprövningsmyndigheten”) (SRC, 2017).
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author and source are properly credited.
All data needed to replicate this study are available at the Harvard Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WUVD8X
The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the article manuscript as well as the editorial group of Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review for their thoughtful feedback and input.
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Published on March 9, 2021 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 23, 2022.
An annotated bibliography is a list of source references that includes a short descriptive text (an annotation) for each source. It may be assigned as part of the research process for a paper , or as an individual assignment to gather and read relevant sources on a topic.
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Make sure your annotated bibliography is formatted according to the guidelines of the style guide you’re working with. Three common styles are covered below:
In APA Style , both the reference entry and the annotation should be double-spaced and left-aligned.
The reference entry itself should have a hanging indent . The annotation follows on the next line, and the whole annotation should be indented to match the hanging indent. The first line of any additional paragraphs should be indented an additional time.
In an MLA style annotated bibliography , the Works Cited entry and the annotation are both double-spaced and left-aligned.
The Works Cited entry has a hanging indent. The annotation itself is indented 1 inch (twice as far as the hanging indent). If there are two or more paragraphs in the annotation, the first line of each paragraph is indented an additional half-inch, but not if there is only one paragraph.
In a Chicago style annotated bibliography , the bibliography entry itself should be single-spaced and feature a hanging indent.
The annotation should be indented, double-spaced, and left-aligned. The first line of any additional paragraphs should be indented an additional time.
The AI-powered Citation Checker helps you avoid common mistakes such as:
For each source, start by writing (or generating ) a full reference entry that gives the author, title, date, and other information. The annotated bibliography format varies based on the citation style you’re using.
The annotations themselves are usually between 50 and 200 words in length, typically formatted as a single paragraph. This can vary depending on the word count of the assignment, the relative length and importance of different sources, and the number of sources you include.
Consider the instructions you’ve been given or consult your instructor to determine what kind of annotations they’re looking for:
These specific terms won’t necessarily be used. The important thing is to understand the purpose of your assignment and pick the approach that matches it best. Interactive examples of the different styles of annotation are shown below.
A descriptive annotation summarizes the approach and arguments of a source in an objective way, without attempting to assess their validity.
In this way, it resembles an abstract , but you should never just copy text from a source’s abstract, as this would be considered plagiarism . You’ll naturally cover similar ground, but you should also consider whether the abstract omits any important points from the full text.
The interactive example shown below describes an article about the relationship between business regulations and CO 2 emissions.
Rieger, A. (2019). Doing business and increasing emissions? An exploratory analysis of the impact of business regulation on CO 2 emissions. Human Ecology Review , 25 (1), 69–86. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26964340
An evaluative annotation also describes the content of a source, but it goes on to evaluate elements like the validity of the source’s arguments and the appropriateness of its methods .
For example, the following annotation describes, and evaluates the effectiveness of, a book about the history of Western philosophy.
Kenny, A. (2010). A new history of Western philosophy: In four parts . Oxford University Press.
A reflective annotation is similar to an evaluative one, but it focuses on the source’s usefulness or relevance to your own research.
Reflective annotations are often required when the point is to gather sources for a future research project, or to assess how they were used in a project you already completed.
The annotation below assesses the usefulness of a particular article for the author’s own research in the field of media studies.
Manovich, Lev. (2009). The practice of everyday (media) life: From mass consumption to mass cultural production? Critical Inquiry , 35 (2), 319–331. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/596645
Manovich’s article assesses the shift from a consumption-based media culture (in which media content is produced by a small number of professionals and consumed by a mass audience) to a production-based media culture (in which this mass audience is just as active in producing content as in consuming it). He is skeptical of some of the claims made about this cultural shift; specifically, he argues that the shift towards user-made content must be regarded as more reliant upon commercial media production than it is typically acknowledged to be. However, he regards web 2.0 as an exciting ongoing development for art and media production, citing its innovation and unpredictability.
The article is outdated in certain ways (it dates from 2009, before the launch of Instagram, to give just one example). Nevertheless, its critical engagement with the possibilities opened up for media production by the growth of social media is valuable in a general sense, and its conceptualization of these changes frequently applies just as well to more current social media platforms as it does to Myspace. Conceptually, I intend to draw on this article in my own analysis of the social dynamics of Twitter and Instagram.
Before you can write your annotations, you’ll need to find sources . If the annotated bibliography is part of the research process for a paper, your sources will be those you consult and cite as you prepare the paper. Otherwise, your assignment and your choice of topic will guide you in what kind of sources to look for.
Make sure that you’ve clearly defined your topic , and then consider what keywords are relevant to it, including variants of the terms. Use these keywords to search databases (e.g., Google Scholar ), using Boolean operators to refine your search.
Sources can include journal articles, books, and other source types , depending on the scope of the assignment. Read the abstracts or blurbs of the sources you find to see whether they’re relevant, and try exploring their bibliographies to discover more. If a particular source keeps showing up, it’s probably important.
Once you’ve selected an appropriate range of sources, read through them, taking notes that you can use to build up your annotations. You may even prefer to write your annotations as you go, while each source is fresh in your mind.
An annotated bibliography is an assignment where you collect sources on a specific topic and write an annotation for each source. An annotation is a short text that describes and sometimes evaluates the source.
Any credible sources on your topic can be included in an annotated bibliography . The exact sources you cover will vary depending on the assignment, but you should usually focus on collecting journal articles and scholarly books . When in doubt, utilize the CRAAP test !
Each annotation in an annotated bibliography is usually between 50 and 200 words long. Longer annotations may be divided into paragraphs .
The content of the annotation varies according to your assignment. An annotation can be descriptive, meaning it just describes the source objectively; evaluative, meaning it assesses its usefulness; or reflective, meaning it explains how the source will be used in your own research .
A source annotation in an annotated bibliography fulfills a similar purpose to an abstract : they’re both intended to summarize the approach and key points of a source.
However, an annotation may also evaluate the source , discussing the validity and effectiveness of its arguments. Even if your annotation is purely descriptive , you may have a different perspective on the source from the author and highlight different key points.
You should never just copy text from the abstract for your annotation, as doing so constitutes plagiarism .
If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.
Caulfield, J. (2022, August 23). What Is an Annotated Bibliography? | Examples & Format. Scribbr. Retrieved September 16, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/citing-sources/annotated-bibliography/
Other students also liked, evaluating sources | methods & examples, how to find sources | scholarly articles, books, etc., hanging indent | word & google docs instructions, scribbr apa citation checker.
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What is the purpose of a bibliography? A bibliography is the list of sources a work's author used to create the work. It accompanies just about every type of academic writing, like essays, research papers, and reports.You might also find a brief, less formal bibliography at the end of a journalistic piece, presentation, or video when the author feels it's necessary to cite their sources.
Title your bibliography section "References" and center the title on the top line of the page. Do not center your references; they should be left-aligned. For longer items, subsequent lines should use a hanging indent of 1/2 inch. Include all types of resources in the same list.
Bibliography Examples In MLA, APA and Chicago. When it comes to examples of bibliographies, it can get confusing. This is because the word "bibliography" can have a double meaning when it comes to writing styles. "Bibliography" can be a catch-all word to mean all source lists in all writing styles. It is also the title of the Chicago ...
Harvard reference examples. Reference list or bibliography entries always start with the author's last name and initial, the publication date and the title of the source. The other information required varies depending on the source type. Formats and examples for the most common source types are given below.
These sample essay outlines include a research paper outline from an actual student paper. How to write a bibliography step-by-step (with examples) Books: General Format: Author (last name first). Title of the book. Publisher, Date of publication. EXAMPLES: MLA Style: Sibley, David Allen. What It's Like to Be a Bird.
A Chicago style bibliography lists the sources cited in your text. Each bibliography entry begins with the author's name and the title of the source, followed by relevant publication details. The bibliography is alphabetized by authors' last names. A bibliography is not mandatory, but is strongly recommended for all but very short papers.
To create a bibliography, gather up all of the sources that you might use in your paper. Create an APA format reference for each source and then write a brief annotation. Your annotation should be a brief summary of what each reference is about. You can quickly refer to these annotations When writing your paper and determine which to include.
Example annotated bibliography. The below is an example of an annotated bibliography: Annotated Bibliography. Morritt, Robert D. Beringia: Archaic Migrations into North America. Cambridge Scholars Pub, 2011. The author studies the migration of cultures from Asia to North America.
Throughout your paper, you need to apply the following APA format guidelines: Set page margins to 1 inch on all sides. Double-space all text, including headings. Indent the first line of every paragraph 0.5 inches. Use an accessible font (e.g., Times New Roman 12pt., Arial 11pt., or Georgia 11pt.). Include a page number on every page.
What exactly is a bibliography? And what is it supposed to look like? Uncover the answer to these questions and learn how to write your bibliography with our examples.
Bibliography Entry for a Book. A bibliography entry for a book begins with the author's name, which is written in this order: last name, comma, first name, period. After the author's name comes the title of the book. If you are handwriting your bibliography, underline each title. If you are working on a computer, put the book title in ...
MLA provides guidelines for writing and formatting your annotated bibliography. An example of a typical annotation is shown below. Kenny, Anthony. A New History of Western Philosophy: In Four Parts. Oxford UP, 2010. Broad history of Western philosophy from the ancient Greeks to the present day. Divided into four periods—ancient, medieval ...
Media Files: APA Sample Student Paper , APA Sample Professional Paper This resource is enhanced by Acrobat PDF files. Download the free Acrobat Reader. Note: The APA Publication Manual, 7 th Edition specifies different formatting conventions for student and professional papers (i.e., papers written for credit in a course and papers intended for scholarly publication).
This guide is a quick introduction to the APA 7th edition citation style. APA is a citation style developed by the American Psychological Association and is primarily used in the Social Sciences. ... Examples: (Calgary Educational Partnership Foundation, 1996, p. 230) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2019)
The basic format for a book citation requires listing the author's name, the title of the book, the publisher's name, and the date of publication. Edited books, when cited in full, will list the editor's name instead of an author's name. References. Becsey, L., Wachsberger, P., Samuels, S., et al (Directors). (2008). In the valley of Elah. [DVD].
In-text citations point the reader to the sources' information on the references page. The in-text citation typically includes the author's last name and the year of publication. If you use a direct quote, the page number is also provided. More information can be found on p. 253 of the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American ...
The following two sample papers were published in annotated form in the Publication Manual and are reproduced here as PDFs for your ease of use. The annotations draw attention to content and formatting and provide the relevant sections of the Publication Manual (7th ed.) to consult for more information.. Student sample paper with annotations (PDF, 5MB)
MLA Annotated Bibliography Examples. Cook, Sybilla. Instruction Design. New York: Garland, 1986. This book provides an annotated. bibliography of sources concerning instructional patterns for research libraries. Written for an. academic audience, the author provides information on how such a bibliography can be used.
This is the total package when it comes to MLA format. Our easy to read guides come complete with examples and step-by-step instructions to format your full and in-text citations, paper, and works cited in MLA style. There's even information on annotated bibliographies.
Example: Note citation ... Container (e.g., the book an essay was published in, the journal an article appeared in) Publisher; Location (e.g., a URL or DOI, or sometimes a physical location) The exact information included varies depending on the source type and the citation style. The order in which the information appears, and how you format ...
What is an Annotated Bibliography? An annotated bibliography is essentially a list of citations to books, articles, and other documents, e-resources--(websites for example), and media (film, music, television.) Following the citation is a brief (usually about 150 words) descriptive and evaluative paragraph of the work.
APA Example. An APA annotated bibliography is used for science and technical papers. It includes an APA citation and APA formatting for headers and title. MLA Example. An MLA annotated bibliography is the go-to style of high school and college students for language arts and humanities papers. This style uses MLA style citations and formatting ...
Below you will find sample annotations from annotated bibliographies, each with a different research project. Remember that the annotations you include in your own bibliography should reflect your research project and/or the guidelines of your assignment. As mentioned elsewhere in this resource, depending on the purpose of your bibliography ...
Annotated bibliographies provide an opportunity for you to learn more about your research topic, assess and evaluate sources, and discuss the ways in which each source contributes to the larger context of your paper. How to Write an Annotated Bibliography: Writing an annotated bibliography begins with research and reading. Research
Citation Examples | Books, Articles, Websites & More. Published on April 9, 2021 by Jack Caulfield. Revised on January 17, 2024. The most common citation styles are APA and MLA. To cite a source in these styles, you need a brief in-text citation and a full reference. Use the interactive tool to understand how a citation is structured and see ...
Learn more about creating bibliographies and getting started with citation managers. The most common citation formats are: MLA (Modern Language Association) style, which is primarily used for papers in the humanities; APA (American Psychological Association) style, which is primarily used for papers in the social sciences;
Convergent validity example. Consider the following example of how convergent validity might be assessed in psychology research. Convergent validity example A researcher is studying how food preferences develop throughout childhood. They have created a survey of food preferences that they wish to validate.
A sample of scientific papers with signs of GPT-use found on Google Scholar was retrieved, downloaded, and analyzed using a combination of qualitative coding and descriptive statistics. All papers contained at least one of two common phrases returned by conversational agents that use large language models (LLM) like OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Published on March 9, 2021 by Jack Caulfield. Revised on August 23, 2022. An annotated bibliography is a list of source references that includes a short descriptive text (an annotation) for each source. It may be assigned as part of the research process for a paper, or as an individual assignment to gather and read relevant sources on a topic ...