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Creating an Annotated Bibliography: Getting Started

Kia ora! This guide provides quick guidelines to support your research.

An Annotated Bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a paragraph, usually about 150 words in length, known as the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to evaluate the relevance and accuracy of the cited sources. Unlike abstracts, that are descriptive summaries, annotations are descriptive and critical; they reveal the author's point of view, clarity and appropriateness of expression, and authority.

Bibliographic Citation is the written description of a text, book, journal article, essay, report, web page or some other material that has been quoted or used as an authority. A complete citation for a single-authored book includes:

  • Author 
  • Title 
  • Publication information
  • Year.

A complete citation for a journal article includes:

  • Author 
  • Article title
  • Title of the journal
  • Volume number 
  • Issue number
  • Page numbers
  • Year

The elements of a complete citation of other types of publication are different. See the relevant Referencing Style Guide for further information on specific types of publications.