Preparing a Bibliography

Your bibliography is the list of the sources you used to write your paper, including books, encyclopedias, articles and web sites. Bibliographies are included in papers so that your teacher and anybody else who reads your paper will know the sources of your ideas and facts, when those ideas are not your own. Different kinds of sources have different formats, as you will see below. The format used in this sample bibliography comes from MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, which AST uses as its standard. (Copies available at the JVMC, call number 808.02 GIB)

Please note that in all printed works cited lists citations longer than one line have a hanging indent, i.e., all lines after the first line are ½ inch in from the left margin. Because this version is online we have used bullets instead.

Warning! Copyright information comes from the title page of the book, NOT the cover.

Books with one author:
Author's last name, Author's first name. Title. Place of publication: Publisher, copyright date.

Books with two or three authors
First Author's last name, First Author's first name and Full Names of 2nd and 3rd Authors. Title. Place of publication: Publisher,copyright date.

Books with more than three authors:
Last Name of First Author, First Name of First Author, et al. Title. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.

Books with an editor:
Editor’s last name, Editor’s first name. Title. Place of publication: Publisher, Date of publication.

Books with no editor or author:
Title. Place of publication: Publisher, Date of publication.

Encyclopedia articles:
Author’s last name, Author’s first name (if available)." Article title." Encyclopedia name. Edition (if available). Date of publication.

Newspaper and Magazine articles:
 Author's last name, Author's first name (if available). "Article Title." Newspaper or magazine. Date Month Year: Pages.


Articles found on the Web:
Author’s last name, Author’s first name (if available). "Article Title." URL. Date accessed.

Articles found in an online subscription database such as EBSCOhost:
Author’s last name, Author’s first name (if available). "Article Title." Magazine. Day Month Year: Pages. Database. Name of database provider. Name of the library, Location of the library. URL ("persistent link" to the article). Date accessed.

 

 

 

Bibliographies are listed in alphabetical order. If your source has a listed author or editor, use her last name. If not, use the title of the article or the book or the website. The articles a, an and the are not used for alphabetization.

The examples above would be listed in the following order in your bibliography:

Works Cited