How to write a bibliography

Research and Style Manual

When writing a piece of work you will need to refer in your text to material written or produced by others. This procedure is called citing or quoting references. Consistency and accuracy are important to enable readers to identify and locate the material to which you have referred. The same set of rules should be followed every time you cite a reference. The system used at Sekolah Pilar Indonesia is detailed below.

The references are to be in alphabetical order of author’s names. Whenever possible the information for your bibliographic reference should be taken from the title page.

For place of publication give the city when possible, not just the country and when the city is well known do not mention the country at all eg London (there is no need to mention England).

The date of publication should be the date which immediately follows the copyright © symbol.


PROCEDURE

1.   For each source or reference listed, begin the first line at the margin and indent each line that follows.

2.   Underline the titles of books, periodicals and websites. Titles of articles within a source are enclosed in quotation marks.

3.   Note punctuation and follow exactly.

4.   If information, such as author or place of publication, is not available, just leave it out.

5.   Arrange all sources in one list, alphabetically by first word, which will generally be either the author’s last name 
or the first important words of the title.


Print materials

Book (one author)

Parson, Elizabeth. Amazing Spiders. New York: Knopf, 1990.

Author’s last name, First name. Title of Book. City of Publication: Publishing Company,

Copyright Year.

Book (no author)

World Travel Guide. London: SF Travel Publications, 2002.

Title of Book. City of Publication: Publishing Company, Copyright Year.

Book (two authors)

McKissak, Patricia, and Frederick McKissak. Spiders in   Africa  and the

East. Brookfield: Millsbrook Press, 1994.

First Author’s Last Name, First Name, and Second Author’s First Name, Last Name.

Title of Book. City of Publication: Publishing Company, Copyright Year.

Book (one editor)

Adams, Brian, ed. Africa: An Authoritive Study. New York: Charles

Scribner’s Sons, 2002.

Editor’s Last Name, First Name, ed. Title of Book. City of Publication: Publishing

Company, Copyright Year.

Books (two editors)

Clark, Anne, and Andrew Brace, eds. The International Book of Dog

Breeds. London: Howell House Books, 1996.

First Editor’s Last Name, First Name and Second Editor’s First Name, Last Name, eds.

Title of  Book. City of Publication: Publishing Company, Copyright Year.

Books (three or more editors)

Boehm, David, et. al., eds. Guinness Sports Record Book, 2000-01. New York:

Stirling, 2000.

First Editor’s Last Name, First Name, et. al., eds. Title of Book. City of Publication:

Publishing Company, Copyright Year.

Encyclopedia Article

Minch, Edwin. “Spiders.” World Book Encyclopedia. 1997 ed.

Author’s Last Name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Encyclopedia Title. Year.

Magazine Article

Churchman, Deborah. “Be a Nature Detective.” Ranger Rick Mar. 1999:

28-31.

Author’s Last Name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Magazine Title Date of Magazine

(day, month, year): Pages.

World Wide Web

Some elements such as the author or even the title of a web site can be difficult to locate or just not present. It may be necessary to view the document header information (metadata) in the HTML code in an attempt to complete these details.

Web Page

Gilbert, Tim. Anansi the Spider. Manteno Community Unit School District,

Manteno: 27 August 2006

<http://www.manteno.k12.il.us/webquest/elementary/LanguageArts

/Anansi/timgilbertwebquest.html>

Author, if given (not web page creator). Title of Site or Page. Name of Institution or

Sponsoring Organization. Date of Visit to Site <URL of Page>

Interview

Barquist, Carmel. Personal interview. 28 August 2006.

Name of person interviewed (Last Name, First Name). Type of interview (Personal

or Telephone). Date of Interview.

In–text Citations

Often we need to quote an author we have read or repeat in our own words the ideas and thoughts of another person. We need to acknowledge or cite this use of another’s ideas in the body of our essay in this way: –

One author

The last name of the author and the copyright date of the book are inserted into the text in two possible ways

According to Parsons (1990) spiders can live……….

One author (Parsons 1990) believes that spiders can live…….

Try to limit the amount of direct quotes that you use, although at times you may wish to para-phrase an authors words ie use part of a sentence only. You must show the page number since you are referring to a specific part of the text. You should do it like this:-

As Parsons (1990. p.11) has stated, spiders ‘have been observed to live much longer lives than we previously thought and  Charlotte need not have broken Wilbur’s heart’.

As a general rule shorter quotations, as above should be included in the text, but longer quotations (30 words or more) should be set separately in a block quotation. The quotation should be indented and may use a different font or smaller type. It should look like this:-

One of the authors has an unusual viewpoint and states that:

Spiders can be found in every country on earth, but there is no reason for humans to be afraid of them. Their webs should not be cleaned from the ceiling, but rather left there as an automatic ‘bug-catcher’. Very few of a spider’s offspring survive and there is little danger of being over run by these helpful creatures (Parsons 1990, p. 14).

When quoting from an electronic source it is necessary only to mention the author’s name and the date of the production of the web page. Follow the examples above, with the exception of the page numbers.