CTVA 301: Design of the Media Message

To search Google Scholar and connect back to the University Library, go into Settings, Choose Library Links, and then CSUN.

Then look for articles and resources that have a CSUN link:

An annotated bibliography is a list of sources (books, articles, websites, etc.) with short paragraph about each source. An annotated bibliography is sometimes a useful step before drafting a research paper, or it can stand alone as an overview of the research available on a topic.

Each source in the annotated bibliography has a citation - the information a reader needs to find the original source, in a consistent format to make that easier. These consistent formats are called citation styles.  The most common citation styles are MLA (Modern Language Association) for humanities, and APA (American Psychological Association) for social sciences.

Annotations are about 4 to 6 sentences long (roughly 150 words), and address:

•     Main focus or purpose of the work
•     Usefulness or relevance to your research topic 
•     Special features of the work that were unique or helpful
•     Background and credibility of the author
•     Conclusions or observations reached by the author
•     Conclusions or observations reached by you

Annotations versus Abstracts

Many scholarly articles start with an abstract, which is the author's summary of the article to help you decide whether you should read the entire article.  This abstract is not the same thing as an annotation.  The annotation needs to be in your own words, to explain the relevance of the source to your particular assignment or research question.

This guide is a quick introduction to the American Psychological Association (APA) 7th Edition Style for citations, basic format, and sample annotated bibliography. Please be sure to consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association 7th edition and/or the APA Style website for additional details.

There is a print copy available  in Reserves (4th floor, east wing) for a two hour checkout.

Most Notable changes from APA 6th edition to 7th edition

1. Publisher location is NOT included for book citations.

2. In-text citations from works with three or more authors is shortened from the first time mentioned to (Hernandez et al., 2020)

3. Include up to 20 authors in the reference.

4. DOIs need to be formatted as clickable URLs such as https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1400256   

5. Don’t include “Retrieved from” in front of a URL unless a retrieval date is needed.

6. For website citation include the website name, unless it is the same as the author.

7. Clear guidelines for citing media contributors that are not authors or editors.

8. Citation examples are provided for different types of online sources including: podcasts, youtube videos, and social media posts.  

9. Use the singular “they” as a gender neutral pronoun instead of he or she.

10. Clear format guidelines are provided for student and professional research papers.

11. More flexibility in font choices/size and include:

    1. Calibri 11

    2. Arial 11

    3. Lucida Sans Unicode 10

    4. Times New Roman 12

    5. Georgia 11

12. The running head on the title page no longer includes the words Running head. It now only includes the title of the paper and the page number.

13. Student papers do not need to include a running head. (Unless specified from your instructor)

14. At the end of a sentence, use one space instead of two.