How to Write Bibliography for Research Paper
Bibliographies comprise all of the sources you used in your study, regardless of whether you credit or discuss them in your research report. Only the sources that you cite should be included in your works cited. When professors want to evaluate all of your research for the paper, they will request bibliographies.
MLA style, which is most often used in high school and university writing programs, asks you to list only the works that you used in your paper, rather than all of them.
What Exactly Is a Bibliography?
A bibliography is a list of books, speeches, diaries, interviews, legislation, letters, websites, and other sources that you used when researching and writing a paper. The bibliography is included at the conclusion of the book.
The primary goal of a bibliographical entry is to provide credit to writers whose work you used in your study. It also allows a reader to learn more about your issue by digging into the research you did to produce your paper. In academia, papers aren’t created in a vacuum; academic publications are where fresh research on a topic circulates and earlier work is built upon.
How to Write Bibliography for Research Paper
Components of a Bibliography Entry
The following entries will be added to the bibliography:
- Editors and/or authors (and translator, if applicable)
- Your source’s title (in addition to edition, volume, and the book title if your source is a chapter or article in a multi-author book with an editor)
- Publication details (the city, state, name of the publisher, date published, page numbers consulted, and URL or DOI, if applicable)
- In the case of online sources, the date of access (check with the style guide at the beginning of your research as to whether you need to track this information)
Putting Together Bibliographies and Works Cited
- If your assignment requires a bibliography, include a list of all the sources you used in your study.
- Include just the sources you quote, summarize, paraphrase, or discuss in your paper if your project requires works cited or references page.
- Delete all references from your works cited page that you did not cite in your article from your works cited page.
- All in-text citations used to acknowledge others for their ideas, words, and effort at the conclusion of quotes, summaries, and paraphrases must be followed by a referenced reference in the bibliography or works cited.
The good news is that you do not need to know all of the many ways to write works cited entries. There are a plethora of useful style guidelines available to teach you what material should be included, in what order it should appear, and how to structure it. The format is frequently different depending on the style guide you are following.
The Modern Language Association (MLA) adopts a style that differs from the APA (American Psychological Association) style, and both diverge from the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS). Always consult with your teacher on the best writing style to adopt.
Bibliography Entry for a Book
A book’s bibliography entry begins with the author’s name, which is written in the following order: last name, comma, first name, and period. The author’s name is followed by the title of the book. If you’re creating your bibliography by hand, make sure you underline each title.
If you’re working on a computer, italicize the book title. Make sure to capitalize the words in the title exactly as they are written in the book. Following the title is the city in which the book was published, followed by a colon, the publisher’s name, a comma, the date of publication, and a period.
Bibliography Entry for a Periodical
The format of a bibliography entry for a periodical differs significantly from that of a bibliography item for a book. Begin a magazine article with the author’s last name, followed by a comma, the first name, and then a period.
Then, within the closing quote mark, write the article’s title in quotation marks, followed by a period (or other concluding punctuation). The title of the magazine follows, either underlined or italicized depending on whether you are scribbling or using a computer, and is followed by a period. Last are the date and year, followed by a colon and the pages on which the piece appeared.
Bibliography Entry for a Web Site
Include the information a reader needs to identify the source or to know where and when you obtained it for sources such as Web sites. Always start with the last name of the author, broadcaster, or person you interviewed. For more information about your writing feel free to contact a reliable assignment writing company today.
