Annotated Bibliographies: Annotations

 APA, MLA and Chicago styled annotated bibliographies are each formatted differently.   

They do share certain features, however. In all of the above cases the citations should be listed in alphabetical order with their respective annotation written beneath them. 

Your annotations should also follow the general rules for academic writing that you would use in any academic paper: 

• Use full sentences.
• Be concise. 
• Try not to repeat information.
• Use transition words when appropriate.

Unlike your other academic assignments, it is not necessary to use in-text quotes within your annotation. 

Each citation in an annotated bibliography has an annotation following it. An annotation is a paragraph that evaluates or summarizes a work and clues readers in on the work's relevance and quality. The most common types of annotations are: 

• Summary annotations. These provide a description of a work. They summarize: 
  • The main focus of the work
  • The author's perspective or theory
  • The methodology or arguments used in the work
  • The work's conclusion
  • Any other main points in the work that stand out to you
• Evaluative annotations. These provide a description of a work and discuss it's strengths and weaknesses. They summarize:
  • The main focus of the work
  • The author's perspective or theory
  • The methodology or arguments used in the work
  • The work's conclusion
  • Any other main points in the work that stand out to you
  • The strengths or limitations of the work
  • How the work compares to other literature on the topic
  • How the work fits in with your own research assignment

Konstan, V., Lehmann, I.S. (2011). Emerging adults at work and at play: Leisure, work engagement, and career indecision. Journal of Career

Assessment, 19(2), 151-164.

The authors of this article establish that traditional career counseling theories that were developed during the mid-twentieth century do not address the behaviors of emerging adults - defined here as a developmental group between ages 25 and 30 - who are grappling with career indecision. To further explore how people in this developmental group make career decisions, they examined the relationship between career indecision, work engagement, and leisure in emerging adults by determining if career decisive emerging adults had higher levels of leisure control, leisure enjoyment, leisure competence, and work engagement than career indecisive emerging adults. Starting with a pool of 486 volunteers who were recruited online, the authors administered the Career Decision-making Difficulties Questionnaire to the entire pool, and then drew a sample from the pool that could be divided into equal groups of 32 career decisive emerging adults and 32 career indecisive emerging adults. They then administered Version B of the Leisure Diagnostic Battery and the Utrecht work engagement scale to both sample groups. These tests measure the perceived freedom of leisure in adults and work engagement respectively, revealing that career decisive emerging adults in the sample had higher measurements for leisure control, leisure enjoyment, leisure competence, and work engagement than their career indecisive counterparts. While the authors were not able to test any causation, they caution career counselors to pay attention to the recreational activities and wellbeing of their clients beyond the workplace and to consider the ways in which they can inform career decision-making.

Konstan, V., Lehmann, I.S. (2011). Emerging adults at work and at play: Leisure, work engagement, and career indecision. Journal of Career

Assessment, 19(2), 151-164.

Author’s POV.

The authors of this article establish that traditional career counseling theories that were developed during the mid-twentieth century do not address the behaviors of emerging adults - defined here as a developmental group between ages 25 and 30 - who are grappling with career indecision.

Purpose of the work.

To further explore how people in this age group make career decisions, the authors examine the relationship between career indecision, work engagement, and leisure in emerging adults.

Thesis.

The authors proposed that career decisive emerging adults had higher levels of leisure competence, leisure control, leisure enjoyment, and work engagement than career indecisive emerging adults.

Methodology.

The authors began with a pool of 486 volunteers who were recruited online, administered the Career Decision-making Difficulties Questionnaire to the entire pool, and then drew a sample from the pool that could be divided into equal groups of 32 career decisive emerging adults and 32 career indecisive emerging adults. They then administered Version B of the Leisure Diagnostic Battery and the Utrecht work engagement scale to both groups. These tests measure the perceived freedom of leisure in adults and work engagement respectively.

Conclusion

The tests measured statistically significant differences between the two groups in all four categories. Career decisive emerging adults had higher measurements for leisure control, leisure enjoyment, leisure competence, and work engagement than their career indecisive counterparts.

Other main points.  

While the authors were not able to test any causation, they caution career counselors to pay attention to the recreational activities and wellbeing of their clients beyond the workplace and to consider the ways in which they can inform career decision-making.