Plan what topics you will explore during your research and color code your note cards one color to each topic; for example, a paper on government in the United States could have blue, pink and green cards for notes on federal, state and local authorities. When creating bibliography note cards, use the same color card as the topic your resource describes. This will help you locate cards if you need to remove them and will also let you divide your bibliography into thematic sections.
As you research your topic, generate a bibliographic note card for each resource you might use in your writing. For a book resource, the UC Santa Cruz University Library suggests writing down at least four standard attributes: page numbers, author, title and publication information (name of publisher and date and location of printing). If the resource is a journal article, also include the volume, issue number and journal title.
Bibliographic note cards allow you to write a citation page in any official style; based on your course requirements or audience needs, pick the appropriate citation format. According to the Purdue Online Writing Lab, APA, MLA and Chicago Manual of Style are three popular styles for academic and professional writing. APA style is used for psychology papers, MLA style is used for humanities papers and Chicago style is used for history papers.
When your research is complete, divide the cards into topic piles by color if you wish to divide your bibliography by theme. The University of Kansas Writing Center warns you may need to discard some of your notes or rewrite your original topic headings to fit your research. After putting your cards in alphabetical order by author's last name, type out the information and format according to your chosen official style guide. See the Resource section for links to the official APA, MLA and Chicago Manual of Style format guides.