APA Examples
APA EXAMPLE OF INFORMATIVE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
TAKEN FROM PATRICIA BIZZELL AND BRUCE HERZBURG'S BOOK
Voeltz, L.M. (1980). Children's attitudes toward handicapped peers. American
Journal of Mental Deficiency, 84, 455-464.
As services for severely handicapped children become increasingly available
within neighborhood public schools, children's attitudes toward handicapped
peers in integrated settings warrant attention. Factor analysis of attitude
survey responses of 2,392 children revealed four factors underlying attitudes
toward handicapped peers: social-contact willingness, deviance
consequation, and two actual contact dimensions. Upper elementary-age
children, girls, and children in schools with most contact with severely
handicapped peers expressed the most accepting attitudes. Results of this
study suggest the modifiability of children's attitudes and the need to develop
interventions to facilitate social acceptance of individual differences in
integrated school settings.
APA EXAMPLE OF INDICATIVE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
EXAMPLE FROM THOMAS TATE'S HANDOUT FOR THE WRITE PLACE
Howard, T, & Rifkin, J (1977). Who should play God? New York: Dell.
This book "lifts the cloak of secrecy from genetic experiments" and
explores, among other things, "who is performing the research and who
profits from it" (12). It's clearly anti-genetic engineering; its chapter titles
give a good idea of the direction and flavor of the book, for example,
"Eugenics," "Eliminating 'Bad' Genes," "Bio-Futures," "Scientists and
Corporation." This book looks as if it is an appropriate source for the
social arguments from the political left wing.
NOTE: This example includes an instance of citation within an annotation.
You can also see in this example that if the bibliography itself is only one line,
you go on to indent two spaces as usual for the annotation.
APA EXAMPLE OF EVALUATIVE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
EXAMPLE FROM LAURIE CARLSON'S HANDOUT
Schechter, H. (1971). Death and resurrection of the king: Elements of primitive
mythology and ritual in "Roger Malvin's Burial." English Language Notes, 8,
201-05.
Though Schechter reorganizes the material in an interesting format, basically
his study is a reiteration of Cassier's seminal argument in The Sacred and the
Profane: Modern Myth Studies. Schechter's major contribution to the debate
is his recognition that Reuben sacrifices Cyrus so that the curse of death-in-
life can be removed. Schechter's attempt to put Cassier's argument in a
Jungian context is intriguing but not quite successful, since he must ignore
important elements in the story to do so.
NOTE: Compare the content of the following APA summary annotation with the critical/evaluative
annotation given above for the same source. Note the difference in approach and information.
Schechter, H. (1971). Death and resurrection of the king: Elements of primitive
mythology and ritual in "Roger Malvin's Burial." English Language Notes, 8,
201-05.
Working with Frazer's paradigm of the death and resurrection of the King
motif in myth and ritual, Schechter sees Malvin as the dying king in
Hawthorne's short story and Reuben as his successor. Reuben sacrifices
Cyrus so that the curse of death-in-life can be removed. Thus, the tale
becomes the imaginary fulfillment of the blessing of fertility (204).
APA EXAMPLE OF COMBINATION ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
TAKEN FROM CENTER FOR INFORMATION ON LANGUAGE TEACHING AND THE ENGLISH TEACHING INFORMATION CENTER
OF THE BRITISH COUNCIL'S BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Morris, Joyce M. (1959). Reading in the primary school: An investigation into
standards of reading and their association with primary school characteristics.
London: Newnes, for National Foundation for Educational Research.
Report of a large-scale investigation into English children's reading
standards, and their relation to conditions such as size of classes, types of
organization and methods of teaching. Based on enquiries in sixty schools in
Kent and covering 8,000 children learning to read English as their mother
tongue. Notable for thoroughness of research techniques.
APA EXAMPLE OF TELESCOPIC ANNONTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
EXAMPLE FROM I. F. BELL AND J. GALLUP'S REFERENCE GUIDE
Vowles, Richard B. (1962). Psychology and drama: A selected checklist.
Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, 3(1), 35-48.
Divided by individual authors. Reviews the research between 1920 and
1961.
APA EXAMPLE OF PARAGRAPH ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
TAKEN FROM MICHAEL ENGLE, AMY BLUMENTHAL, AND TONY COSGRAVE'S "HOW TO PREPARE AN
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY"
Goldschneider, F. K., Waite, L. J., & Witsberger, C. (1986). Nonfamily living and
the erosion of traditional family orientations among young adults. American
Sociological Review, 51, 541-554.
The authors, researchers at the Rand Corporation and Brown University, use
data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young Women and Young
Men to test their hypothesis that nonfamily living by young adults alters their
attitudes, values, plans, and expectations, moving them away from their
belief in traditional sex roles. They find their hypothesis strongly supported
in young females, while the effects were fewer in studies of young males.
Increasing the time away from parents before marrying increased
individualism, self-sufficiency, and changes in attitudes about families. In
contrast, an earlier study by Williams cited below shows no significant gender
differences in sex role attitudes as a result of no family living.
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill