APA style and citations for dummies - Joe Giampalmi 2021

Extending references: annotated bibliography
Formatting last impressions: reference list
Practicing safe cites: writing and citing sources

Annotating references is like adding healthy toppings to your salad. From the professor’s perspective, requiring students to submit an annotation of sources adds critical thinking to their academic experience. Annotation requires higher-order skills such as synthesizing purposes of the sources, evaluating their application to the argument, and justifying their use to the research.

Strategies for reference annotations include the following:

· Summarizing and paraphrasing (as well as highlighting) major topics

· Evaluating the effectiveness of sources as supporting or refuting the argument

· Reflecting on the overall value of the source

· Combining these elements, beginning with a brief summary

Formatting the annotation requires double-space alignment, directly under the indentation of the reference entry. The alignment transitions the idea flow from the source to the annotation. The length ranges from three to five sentences to a longer paragraph. Don’t copy and paste sentences from the abstract, because doing so is plagiarism. Ask your professor for annotation guidelines, and if none are offered, use the combination of strategies. A good time management strategy is to prepare for your annotation when you first begin summarizing sources, which includes highlights of major topics covered.

Here’s a sample of what annotation looks like:

The authors examine community conditions conducive to building a successful school environment. They focus on conditions such as encouraging reading and academics, supporting the arts, and maintaining perspective on athletics. The authors’ long-term study supports the thesis that successful schools result from an environment of supportive academic strategies. The authors underestimate the challenge of implementing these strategies in nonsupportive communities.