How to Properly Make a Bibliography

A bibliography lists references, such as books, journals and websites, used for researching an essay or article. It appears at the end of the paper and provides authors, titles, publishers and dates of publication. Each school and publisher has its own guidelines for writing a bibliography, sometimes adopting the MLA, Harvard or Chicago format, but some general style and formatting guidelines apply in all cases.

Instructions

  1. Print Publications in a Bibliography

    • 1

      Write the last name of the author, followed by the first name or initials and separated by a comma. Add a period. For example: "Smith, John." In the case of more than one author, only the first author's name is inverted: "Smith, John, Jane Doe and David P. Jones."

    • 2

      Write the year of publication directly after the authors' names in Harvard style. For example: "Smith, John and Jane Doe, 2011." In other styles, the date normally comes later.

    • 3

      Write the article title in quotation marks for a journal, magazine or newspaper article. End with a period inside the quotation marks.

    • 4

      Write the full title of the book or journal in italics, followed by a period.

    • 5

      Write the city of the book's publication, followed by the name of the publisher, separated with a colon. Add a comma and the year of publication, followed by a period, except for Harvard style, for which the date goes earlier. For example: "New York: Smiths Books, 2011." For a journal, write the issue number or date immediately after the journal title and separated by a comma. For example "Journal of Science, 2:3" or "Journal of Science, 24 May 2009."

    • 6

      Add each publication on a new line, listing sources in alphabetical order.

    Electronic Publications (Websites) in a Bibliography

    • 7

      Write bibliography entries for online journal articles as you would a print publication, listing author, article title, journal name, and date or issue number. For other websites, provide author, title of document or page and the name of the site.

    • 8

      Write "Accessed" or "Viewed," followed by the date you accessed the website.

    • 9

      Type the full URL of the website, including "http://." In Harvard style, write it between "<" and ">." MLA format does not require the URL.

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