To introduce your students to the concept of a properly formatted bibliography, have them complete an activity that uses published examples tweaked slightly for learning purposes. Make a copy of a bibliography; then black out a section of a citation line to help your students determine which information is missing; for example, remove the author's last name and publication date. Students rework the bibliography by adding the missing information to complete it. For beginners, provide a copy of the actual, correct bibliography for reference.
Have each student craft a bibliography; this activity works best when it's centered around a specific topic. Assign each student a different topic, and task them to find and read books, articles and other materials, both printed and online, to learn about a subject. At the end of the activity, each student must create a bibliography in the correct citation format to showcase the sources used to learn about the subject. Limit the students by having them use only their top 10 sources.
A more advanced, yet basic, activity that teaches students to understand the proper format, layout and organization of bibliographies is to have them play editor. Each student is given two versions of a bibliography: one that is accurate and correct and another that has spelling, punctuation, capitalization and omission errors. Students work off the correct version to make all changes to the incorrect sheet. This task helps students understand what to look for when verifying the accuracy and validity of a bibliography.
Using a factual and complete bibliography is a way to get students accustomed to reading through a list of sources to find reference material. Give each student a bibliography and have them hunt down the sources listed on the sheet. To make the activity more relevant to current forms of reference, have the bibliography include a mix of online references and available books and magazines. Students seek out and collect the references noted on the bibliography, completing the project after they have located all source materials.