A Guide About MLA Annotated Bibliography Format

Have you received instructions from your research supervisor to write MLA style annotated bibliography for your paper? But you are unaware of how to write an annotated bibliography in MLA format, there is no need to worry anymore because ResearchProspect has brought a comprehensive guide about MLA annotated bibliography writing for students conducting research studies.

You just have to follow the instructions outlined below containing style or formatting structure to follow backed with relevant examples. Make sure to use the guidelines as mentioned because deviating from any single point can make your study non-aligned with the submission requirements.

We have written the example with clear instructions below to help you learn how to do a bibliography in MLA format for your dissertation and other research studies.

What is MLA Style of Citation?

Modern Language Association (MLA) is a citation style commonly used by researchers of arts and humanities studies, such as English, Philosophy, Sociology, and so on. It provides a guide for adding citations in your literature review of the paper, dissertation, and other types of studies like SCI papers, etc.

MLA Formatting Style for Research Studies

• Use of Times New Roman font
• Use of font size between 11-13, which is easily readable
• Add double spaces in the paper
• Use of 1-inch margin lines
• Use ½ inch of space to indent every first line of each paragraph
• Use of a hanging indent against each citation in the works cited page

Make sure to keep in mind that the formatting guidelines remain almost the same whether you are using MLA 8 edition, 9, or any other version, but make sure to check the updated guidelines while doing citations.

What is an Annotated Bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a list containing a short description of sources mentioned in the research study. It is enlisted in a logical order, like in alphabetical order, and short descriptive text is added against each citation to make the readers track the in-text citations, full text. It is also tracked by the research committee to verify the citations as well.

It is usually assigned by the research supervisor or demanded by the publication journal in which you are going to submit your conference paper and similar studies.

What is the Right MLA Format for an Annotated Bibliography?

MLA annotated bibliography contains a list of citations with short descriptions in a separate paragraph or even on a page to provide extra information for the additional references added in the research paper. You can name the annotations paragraph as “Annotated Bibliography” or “Annotated List of Works Cited”. Your instructor can better guide you in choosing the right title.

Some research scholars are also advised to use “Bibliography” only as it can include the sources that you have not cited in the study or are not connected to the paper. Make sure to organise the citations list in alphabetical order or you can use chronological order, as well, depending upon the purpose of your assignment.

Let’s learn how to do an annotated bibliography in MLA style using the right formatting guidelines.

• The text should be left aligned
• Double spacing throughout the content
• ½ inch hanging indent
• The annotation should be added on the next line of the citation and also double-spaced or left-aligned, like the whole text.
• Annotation should be indented 1 inch from the left margin of the page to make it distinguished from the 0.5 inch hanging indent of the source entry.

Additional Tips

1. If you are formatting a bibliography in MLA style format and your bibliography is a single paragraph, then there is no need to add an additional indent at the start of the paragraph.
2. If you are following MLA style bibliography format and there are more than 2 or more paragraphs. Make sure to add an indent at the first line of each paragraph, including the first one as well by putting the lines at a 1.5-inch indentation.

Different Types of Annotations

There are different types of annotations widely used by the researchers, following bibliography MLA format, APA, Chicago, and other formats as well. We’ll discuss the most common types below precisely to help you decide which one you have to use while compiling a bibliography for your research study.

• Descriptive Annotation

Descriptive annotation offers a brief overview of the central idea, main themes, or key arguments presented in the source mentioned. It summarises the context of a text or image in the easy-to-digest pieces. Researchers usually use this type of annotation to enable readers to quickly understand the whole message of the content without sneaking into the whole study.

These types of annotations are widely used in library catalogues or journal databases to help readers quickly overview the content to decide whether the source is relevant to their study or not.

• Evaluative Annotation

Evaluative annotation provides not just the summary of the source cited but also insights into its credibility by helping readers understand the author’s stance to decide whether to engage with it or not. Researchers usually use this type of annotation to enable students to access the usefulness, credibility, or relevance of the work cited.

These help researchers to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of a research article, book, image, audio, or different kinds of sources used in research studies.

• Interpretive Annotation

Researchers who want to walk the extra mile to make their studies easy to understand for every kind of reader use interpretive annotation, as it offers the deeper meaning of the content apparent from the themes, symbolism, and implications used in the source mentioned.

It involves interpreting or analysing text, images, audio, etc, to help readers better understand the content and the authors’ intentions. Students of liberal arts or humanities used this type of annotation to highlight the deeper meaning of the content present in the cited source, such as a book, painting, video, audio, and so on.

Tips to Follow for Writing MLA Annotations

If you are still confused about how to do a bibliography in MLA format for your research study, then there is no need to worry.  We have outlined some tips, discussing how many paragraphs and what kind of sentences or phrases you need to write while writing your annotated bibliography in MLA 8 edition or others.

Make sure to follow the tips mentioned below to get your study pass through all the requirements and get published in top-ranking academic journals without receiving any objection on style or formatting consistency.

What Would be The Content-Length of Annotations?

We have consulted the bibliography MLA format writing guidelines and found out that each annotation paragraph should be between 3 to 6 sentences containing between 150 to 200 words in the whole content section to comply with the formatting requirements.

You are only required to write one paragraph according to the updated MLA annotated bibliography format, and you need to keep it precise, not more than 200 words. If you have more content to discuss, then you can write multiple paragraphs, but make sure to follow the formatting structure as discussed above.

Do you Need to Write Complete Sentences or Only Phrases?

According to MLA guidelines on writing annotated bibliography, researchers can use precise phrases to jot down citations instead of full-length, grammatically correct sentences. But you cannot follow this structure for writing citations in your main text because it is only relevant in annotations due to the clarity of context as it’s bound to the subject.

MLA annotated bibliography examples showing how to write phrases or full sentences systematically.

• Comprehensive overview of the dramatic elements from the ancient Greeks to the present day.
• Micheal presented a comprehensive overview of the dramatic elements from the ancient Greeks to the present day.

MLA Annotated Bibliography Examples

Researchers can write MLA-style annotated bibliographies of different citation sources that are available to them. The only condition is to follow MLA annotated bibliography format to use anything as a citation to keep the style consistent or content easy to follow for the readers.

Below are some MLA annotated bibliography format citation types for researchers who are confused about whether they can use anything except journal articles as citations or not.

• Books
• Website Blogs
• Image/ Video
• Audio

Frequently Asked Questions