define bibliographic note

Chapter 13: Works Cited

What is Bibliographic Information?

Bibliographic information refers to specific elements such as the author’s name, the title of the thing (book, documentary, journal article) and the date it was created. Author + Title + Date are the most common pieces of information and they are often found on a book’s title page and the back of the title page, also known as the verso. Often the date is found on the verso.

For example:

Verso of title page

© 2015 Chelsea Vowel

APA reference for this book

Vowel, C. (2016). Indigenous writes: A guide to First nations, Métis, and Inuit issues in Canada . HighWater Press.

MLA reference for this book

Vowel, Chelsea. Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Issues in Canada . HighWater Press, 2016.

The exact bits of information you need depends on the type of resource being cited.

Bibliographic information for a journal article includes

• publication date
• a volume number, and sometimes an issue number.
• the title of the journal
• the title of the article

This screenshot shows bibliographic information for online journal article published in a journal called The American Sociologist

APA reference for this journal article

Deflem, M. (2013). Professor goes gaga: Teaching Lady Gaga and the sociology of fame. The American Sociologist, 44(2), 117-131.   doi: 10.1007/s12108-013-9180-y

MLA reference for this journal article

Deflem, Mathieu. “Professor Goes Gaga: Teaching Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame.” The American Sociologist, vol. 44, no.2, (2013), pp. 117-131.  doi: 10.1007/s12108-013-9180-y

Bibliographic information for a chapter in a book includes 2 titles — the chapter title and the book title.

APA reference for this chapter in an online book

Snively, G., & Corsiglia, J. (2016). Indigenous science: proven, practical and timeless. In G. Snively & Wanosts’a7 Lorna Williams (Eds.), Knowing Home: Braiding Indigenous Science with Western Science , Book 1. Victoria: University of Victoria.

Chapter 6 – Indigenous Science: Proven, Practical and Timeless

MLA reference for this chapter in an online book

Snively, Gloria and John Corsiglia. “Indigenous Science: Proven, Practical and Timeless.” Knowing Home: Braiding Indigenous Science with Western Science , Book 1, edited by Gloria Snively and Wanosts’a7 Lorna Williams, University of Victoria, 2016.

pressbooks.bccampus.ca/knowinghome/chapter/chapter-6/

Bibliographic information for a resource on the web may include a URL or DOI – digital object identifier.

APA reference for this online resource

Conover, M. D., Ferrara, E., Menczer, F., & Flammini, A. (2013). The digital evolution of Occupy Wall Street. PloS One , 8(5). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0064679

MLA reference for this online resource

Conover, Michael D., et al. “The Digital Evolution of Occupy Wall Street.” PloS One , vol. 8, no. 5, 2013. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0064679

Write Here, Right Now: An Interactive Introduction to Academic Writing and Research by Ryerson University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Notes-Bibliography

The notes-bibliography method employs footnotes or endnotes along with a bibliography organized in alphabetical order. Often your instructor or publisher will specify whether they prefer that you use footnotes or endnotes.

Citing Sources in the Text

Notes come at the bottom of each page, separated from the text with a typed line, 1 and 1/2 inches long. Some instructors will allow you to (or prefer that you) place notes, instead, as endnotes on a separate page (titled Notes) at the end of your paper, after any appendices. To acknowledge a source in your paper, place a superscript number (raised slightly above the line) immediately after the end punctuation of a sentence containing the quotation, paraphrase, or summary–as, for example, at the end of this sentence. 1 Do not put any punctuation after the number.

In the footnote or endnote itself, use the same number, but do not raise or superscript it; put a period and one space after the number. The first line of each note is indented five spaces from the left margin. Publishers often prefer notes to be double spaced.

If a single paragraph of your paper contains several references from the same author, it is permissible to use one number after the last quotation, paraphrase, or summary to indicate the source for all of the material used in that paragraph.

Generally, there is no need to use the abbreviations “p.” and “pp.” before page numbers; simply list the appropriate numbers as the last piece of information in the note.

What follows is a sample set of footnotes/endnotes. Please notice the order of the items in each note as well as the punctuation. The first time a work is cited, full information is given (author, title, volume, publication information, page, etc.).

Sample Notes (First References)

Book by a Single Author, First Edition

Steven Nadler, A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 8.

Author First name Last name, Book title (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number.

Book by a Singe Author, Later Edition

Paul S. Boyer, Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age , 2nd ed. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), 24.

Author First name Middle initial. Last name, Book title , number ed. (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number.

Book by a Single Author, Reprinted

Leonora Neville, Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 950-1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; repr., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 101.

Author First name Last name, Book title (Original publisher city: Original publisher, original year; repr., Reprint publisher city, Reprint publisher, reprint year), page number. 

Book by Two Authors

Gerald Marwell and Pamela Oliver, The Critical Mass in Collective Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 104.

First author first name Last name and Second author first name Last name, Book title (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number. 

Book by Three Authors

Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (New York: Knopf, 1961), 23.

First author first name Last name, Second author first name Last name, and Third author first name Last name, Book title (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number. 

Book by More Than Three Authors

Anne Ellen Geller et al., The Everyday Writing Center (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2007), 52.

First author first name Last name et al., Book title (Publisher city, State initials: Publisher, year), page number. 

An Anthology with no Known Author

O: A Presidential Novel , (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011), 3.

Anthology title , (Publisher city: Publisher, year) page number. 

[If the author of an anonymously published book has been revealed, you can put that name in brackets at the beginning of the note. If the author is unknown but a particular writer is strongly suspected, you can put a question mark after the bracketed name.]

Book with Organization as Author

Central Intelligence Agency, CIA World Factbook (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009), 64.

Organization name, Book title (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number.

[Since the CIA is the organization that both authored and published this book, it is referenced twice in this citation.]

An Anthology with Editors in Place of Authors

Henry Louis Gates and Nellie Y. McKay, eds., The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (New York: Norton, 1997), 172.

First editor first name Middle name Last name and Second editor first name Middle initial. Last name, eds., Anthology title (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number. 

Chapter in an Edited Collection

Colleen Dunlavy, “Why Did American Businesses Get So Big?” in Major Problems in American Business History , ed. Regina Blaszczyk and Philip Scranton (New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 2006), 260.

Chapter Author First name Last name, “Chapter title” in Edited collection title , ed. First editor first name Last name and Second editor first name Last name (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number. 

Article in a Journal

Raúl Sánchez, “Outside the Text: Retheorizing Empiricism and Identity,” College English 74 (2012): 243.

Author First name Last name, “Article title,” Journal title volume number (year): page number. 

[If a journal continues pagination across issues in a volume, you do NOT need to include the issue #.]

Book Review

Nancy Rose Marshall, review of Joseph Crawhill, 1861-1913: One of the Glasgow Boys , by Vivian Hamilton, Victorian Studies 42 (1999/2000): 359.

Reviewer first name Middle name Last name, review of Reviewed work , by Author of reviewed work first name Last name, Journal in which review appears volume number (year): page number.

Newspaper Article

Tyler Marshall, “200th Birthday of Grimms Celebrated,” Los Angeles Times , March 15, 1985, sec. 1A.

Article author first name Last name, “Article title,” Newspaper name , Month day, year, sec. number. 

[Since prominent newspapers may have several different daily or regional editions, you don’t need to include the page number in this note.]

Encyclopedia Entry

• John Morris-Jones, “Wales,” in Encyclopedia Britannica , 11th ed. (1911), 260.
• Author of entry first name Last name, “Title of entry,” in Encyclopedia title , number ed.  (year), page number. 
• Wikipedia , s.v. “Charles R. Van Hise,” last modified April 30, 2018, 15:21, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Van_Hise.
• Encyclopedia name , s.v. “Title of entry,” last modified Month day, year, hour:minute, url. 

[“s.v.” is an abbreviation of “sub verbo” which is Latin for “under the word”]

Interview by Writer of Research Paper

Richard Davidson, interview by author, Madison, WI, April 20, 2012.

Interviewee first name Last name, interview by Interviewer name, City, State initials, Month day, year of interview. 

[Bibliographies only rarely include entries for personal interviews.]

Secondary Source

Coie et al., “The Science of Prevention: A Conceptual Framework and Some Directions for a National Research Program,” American Psychologist 48 (1993): 1022, quoted in Mark T. Greenberg, Celene Domitrovich, and Brian Bumbarger, “The Prevention of Mental Disorders in School-Age Children: Current State of the Field,” Prevention and Treatment 4 (2001): 5.

First author Last name et al., “Title of secondary source,” Journal containing secondary source volume number (year): page number, quoted in First author firt name Middle initial. Last name, Second author First name Last name, and Third author First name Last name, “Title of Primary source,” Journal containing primary source volume number (year): page number. 

[This indicates that you found the Coie et al. information in the Greenberg, Domitrovich, and Bumbarger article, not in the original article by Coie et al. In the bibliography, you would only cite the Greenberg, Domitrovich, and Bumbarger text.]

Performances

William Shakespeare, Othello , dir. Mark Clements, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Milwaukee, April 20, 2012.

Author of work performed, Title , dir. Director First name Last name, Performing company, City of performance, Month day, year of performance. 

[Live performances are not usually included in bibliographies. This is because, unless it has been recorded, a live performance cannot be located and reviewed by the reader.]

A Dissertation

Sara M. Lindberg, “Gender-Role Identity Development During Adolescence: Individual, Familial, and Social Contextual Predictors of Gender Intensification” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin- Madison, 2008), 24.

Dissertation author first name Middle initial. Last name, “Dissertation title” (Ph. D. diss, University, year), page number. 

Class Lecture

Morris Young, “What Is Asian American? What is Asian American Literature?” (lecture, Survey of Asian American Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison, January 22, 2013).

Lecturer First name Last name, “Lecture title.” (lecture, Course title, University, Month day, year of lecture). 

Paper Presented at a Conference

Mary Louise Roberts, “The Public Practice of History in and for a Digital Age” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, New Orleans, January 3, 2013).

Author first name Middle name Last name, “Paper title” (paper presented at the Conference, Conference city, Month day, year of presentation).

Government Documents

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 794 (2010).

Document title, Pub. L. No. numbers, volume number Stat. number (year).

Notes: Pub. L. is an abbreviation for “public law.” Stat. is an abbreviation for “statue.”

Steven Soderbergh, dir., Che: Part One , (2008; New York: IFC Films), DVD.

Director first name Last name, dir., DVD Title , (year of release; City of production: Producer), DVD. 

An Online Source That is Identical to a Print Source

Lee Palmer Wandel, “Setting the Lutheran Eucharist,” Journal of Early Modern History 17 (1998): 133-34, doi: 10.1163/157006598X00135.

Author First name Middle name Last name, “Article title,” Journal titler : volume number (year): page numbers, doi: number. 

[The Chicago Manual recommends including a DOI (digital object identifier) or a URL to indicate that you consulted this source online. If there’s a DOI, you should use that rather than a URL. If there is no DOI, use the URL, including “http://.” There’s no need to include an access date if the online source includes a publication or revision date.]

An Online Newspaper

Kirk Johnson, “Health Care Is Spread Thin on Alaskan Frontier,” New York Times , May 28, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/us/health-care-in-vast-alaska-frontier-is-spread-thin.html.\

Article author first name Last name, “Title of article,” Newspaper , Month day, year issued. 

“Human Rights,” The United Nations, accessed August 5, 2018, http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights/.

“Title of webpage,” Website moderator, Month day, year of access, url. 

[If a website has a publication or revision date, use that instead of an accessed date.]

Sample Notes (Second or Subsequent References)

When a source is used a second time, its reference is given in a shorter form. The Chicago Manual and Turabian suggest two ways to shorten second references. Either plan is acceptable, but you must remain consistent throughout your paper.

Method A: Shortened Form

For the second and all subsequent references to a work, use an abbreviated form. If the work and the author remain the same and if you are using only one book or article by that author, simply give the author’s last name and page reference. The following example has been shortened from the full information provided in note #3 above:

• Neville, 92.

If, however, you are using two or more works by that author, you must indicate which of the works you are citing. Use the last name, a shortened title, and page reference. The following example is shortened from the full information provided in note #1 above:

• Nadler, A Book Forged in Hell, 121.

If you use two authors with the same last name, give the full name in the shortened reference.

Method B: Latin Abbreviations

When referring to the same work as in the citation immediately preceding, use the abbreviation “Ibid.” for the second reference. “Ibid.” is an abbreviation for the Latin word “ibidem” which means “in the same place.” The abbreviation “Ibid.” is followed by a page number if the page from which the second reference is taken is different from the first. If the pages are the same, no number is necessary. As an example, here is how you would cite the first reference to a work:

• Eliza G. Wilkins, The Delphic Maxims in Literature (Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1929), 12.

If you continue drawing from the same page of the same source, your next reference would look like this:

If you continue drawing from the same source but the information comes from a different page, then your note would look like this:

Citing Sources at the End of the Text

The bibliography (as it is called in the note-bibliography system) is placed at the end of your paper, is a double-spaced alphabetized list of books, articles, and other sources used in writing the paper. This list provides all of the information someone would need to locate the source you’re referencing. (NOTE: This list titled “Bibliography” in the note-bibliography system and “References” in the author-date system. Otherwise, both follow the same format.)

The bibliographic form differs from notes in these ways:

• Sources are alphabetized. The author’s last name appears first (Smith, Betty) in a bibliography.
• While notes use commas and parentheses to separate items, a bibliography uses periods.
• While notes use two spaces after a period, a bibliography uses only one space after a period.
• While notes usually indicate specific pages from which you took information; a bibliography lists entire books or a complete chapter to which you referred.
• The first line of a bibliographic entry begins at the left margin and all the other lines are indented 1/2”. This is called a “hanging indent.”

If the author’s name or the title (or other item) is missing, simply go on to the next item as it should appear. When alphabetizing, use the author’s last name for your entry; if it is not given, simply go on to the next item in order (the title of the book or article, for example) and use that to alphabetize the entry.

A sample bibliography follows. Notice the form and order of the entries as well as the punctuation and arrangement within the entries. The sourced referenced are the same as those used in the notes citations above.

Bibliography

Boyer, Paul S. Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age . 2nd ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.

Author last name, First name Middle initial. Book title , number ed. Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Central Intelligence Agency. CIA World Factbook . Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009.

Organization name, Book title .  Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Child, Julia, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck. Mastering the Art of French Cooking. New York: Knopf, 1961.

First author last name First name, Second author first name Last name, and Third author first name Last name. Book title . Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Dunlavy, Colleen. “Social Conceptions of the Corporation: Insights from the History of Shareholder Voting Rights.” Wash. And Lee L. Rev 63 (2006a): 1347-1388.

Author last name, First name. “Article title.” Journal title volume number (year published): page numbers.

—. “Why Did American Businesses Get So Big?” In Major Problems in American Business History , edited by Regina Blaszczyk and Philip Scranton, 257-63. New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 2006b.

–. “Chapter title.” In Edited collection title , edited by First editor first name Last name and Second editor first name Last name, page numbers. Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Note: –. is used when the author is the same as the citation above.

Gates, Henry Louis, and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature . New York: Norton, 1997.

First editor last name, First name Middle name, and Second editor first name Middle initial. Last name, eds., Anthology title. Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Geller, Anne Ellen, Michele Eodice, Frankie Condon, Meg Carroll, and Elizabeth H. Boquet. The Everyday Writing Center . Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2007.

First author last name, First name Middle name, Second author First name Last name, Third author First name Last name, Fourth author First name Last name, and Fifth author First name Middle initial. Last name. Book title . Publisher city, State initials: Publisher, year. 

Greenberg, Mark T., Celene Domitrovich, and Brian Bumbarger. “The Prevention of Mental Disorders in School-Age Children: Current State of the Field.” Prevention and Treatment 4 (2001): 1-62.

First author last name, First name Middle initial., Second author first name Last name, and Third author first name, Last name. “Article title.” Journal title Volume number (year): page numbers. 

Johnson, Kirk. “Health Care Is Spread Thin on Alaskan Frontier.” New York Times , May 28, 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/us/health-care-in-vast-alaska-frontier-is-spread-thin.html.

Article author last name, First name. “Title of article,” Newspaper , Month day, year issued. Url. 

Lindberg, Sara M. “Gender-Role Identity Development During Adolescence: Individual, Familial, and Social Contextual Predictors of Gender Intensification.” Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin- Madison, 2008.

Dissertation author last name, First name Middle initial. “Dissertation title.” Ph. D. diss, University, year.

Marshall, Nancy Rose. Review of Joseph Crawhill, 1861-1913, One of the Glasgow Boys , by Vivian Hamilton. Victorian Studies 42 (1999/2000): 358-60.

Reviewer last name, First name Middle name. Review of Reviewed work , by Author of reviewed work first name Last name, Journal in which review appears volume number (year): page number.

Marshall, Tyler. “200th Birthday of Grimms Celebrated.” Los Angeles Times , 15 March 1985, sec. 1A.

Article author Last name, First name. “Article title.” Newspaper name , day Month year, sec. number.

Marwell, Gerald, and Pamela Oliver. The Critical Mass in Collective Action . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

First author last name, First name, and Second author first name Last name. Book title . Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Morris-Jones, John. “Wales.” In Encyclopedia Britannica , 11th ed. 29 vols. New York: Encyclopedia Britannica Corporation, 1911. 258-70.

Author of entry Last name, First name, “Title of entry.” In Encyclopedia title , number ed. Number vols. City: Publisher, year. pages.

Nadler, Steven. A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.

Author last name, First name. Book title. Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Neville, Leonora. Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 950-1100 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Reprinted. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Author Last name, First name. Book title . Original publisher city: Original publisher, original year. Reprinted. Reprint publisher city: Reprint publisher, reprint year.

O: A Presidential Novel . New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011.

Anthology title . Publisher city: Publisher, year. 

Sánchez, Raúl. “Outside the Text: Retheorizing Empiricism and Identity.” College English 74 (2012): 234-46.

Author Last name, First name. “Article title,” Journal title volume number (year): page number.

Soderbergh, Steven, dir. Che: Part One . 2008; New York: IFC Films. DVD.

Director Last name, First name, dir. DVD Title , Year of release; City of production: Producer. DVD. 

United Nations. “Human Rights.” Accessed August 5, 2018. http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights/.

Website moderator. “Title of webpage.” Accessed Month day, year of access. Url. 

Wandel, Lee Palmer. “Setting the Lutheran Eucharist.” Journal of Early Modern History 17 (1998): 124-55. doi: 10.1163/157006598X00135.

Author Last name, First name Middle name. “Article title.” Journal title volume number (year): page numbers. doi: number. 

Wikipedia . S.v. “Charles R. Van Hise.” Last modified April 30, 2018, 15:21, http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Charles_R._Van_Hise.

Encyclopedia name . S.v. “Title of entry.” Last modified Month day, year, hour:minute, url. 

Young, Morris. “What Is Asian American? What is Asian American Literature?” Lecture at University of Wisconsin-Madison, January 22, 2013.

Lecturer last name, First name. “Lecture title.” Lecture at University, Month day, year of lecture. 

Chicago/Turabian Documentation

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Chicago/Turabian Table of Contents

Author-Date

• Dictionaries home
• American English
• Collocations
• German-English
• Grammar home
• Practical English Usage
• Learn & Practise Grammar (Beta)
• Word Lists home
• My Word Lists
• Recent additions
• Resources home
• Text Checker

Definition of bibliography noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

bibliography

• There is a useful bibliography at the end of each chapter.
• The book includes a selective bibliography of works on French art.
• You'll find the professor's book in the bibliography.
• an extensive bibliography of books and articles
• put together
• in a/​the bibliography
• bibliography of

Want to learn more?

Find out which words work together and produce more natural-sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app. Try it for free as part of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app.

What Is a Bibliography?

• Writing Research Papers
• Writing Essays
• English Grammar
• M.Ed., Education Administration, University of Georgia
• B.A., History, Armstrong State University

A bibliography is a list of books, scholarly  articles , speeches, private records, diaries, interviews, laws, letters, websites, and other sources you use when researching a topic and writing a paper. The bibliography appears at the end.

The main purpose of a bibliography entry is to give credit to authors whose work you've consulted in your research. It also makes it easy for a reader to find out more about your topic by delving into the research that you used to write your paper. In the academic world, papers aren't written in a vacuum; academic journals are the way new research on a topic circulates and previous work is built upon.

Bibliography entries must be written in a very specific format, but that format will depend on the particular style of writing you follow. Your teacher or publisher will tell you which style to use, and for most academic papers it will be either MLA , American Psychological Association (APA), Chicago (author-date citations or footnotes/endnotes format), or Turabian style .

The bibliography is sometimes also called the references, works cited, or works consulted page.

Components of a Bibliography Entry

Bibliography entries will compile:

• Authors and/or editors (and translator, if applicable)
• Title of your source (as well as edition, volume, and the book title if your source is a chapter or article in a multi-author book with an editor)
• Publication information (the city, state, name of the publisher, date published, page numbers consulted, and URL or DOI, if applicable)
• Access date, in the case of online sources (check with the style guide at the beginning of your research as to whether you need to track this information)

Order and Formatting

Your entries should be listed in alphabetical order by the last name of the first author. If you are using two publications that are written by the same author, the order and format will depend on the style guide.

In MLA, Chicago, and Turabian style, you should list the duplicate-author entries in alphabetical order according to the title of the work. The author's name is written as normal for his or her first entry, but for the second entry, you will replace the author's name with three long dashes. 

In APA style, you list the duplicate-author entries in chronological order of publication, placing the earliest first. The name of the author is used for all entries.

For works with more than one author, styles vary as to whether you invert the name of any authors after the first. Whether you use title casing or sentence-style casing on titles of sources, and whether you separate elements with commas or periods also varies among different style guides. Consult the guide's manual for more detailed information.

Bibliography entries are usually formatted using a hanging indent. This means that the first line of each citation is not indented, but subsequent lines of each citation are indented. Check with your instructor or publication to see if this format is required, and look up information in your word processor's help program if you do not know how to create a hanging indent with it.

Chicago's Bibliography vs. Reference System

Chicago has two different ways of citing works consulted: using a bibliography or a references page. Use of a bibliography or a references page depends on whether you're using author-date parenthetical citations in the paper or footnotes/endnotes. If you're using parenthetical citations, then you'll follow the references page formatting. If you're using footnotes or endnotes, you'll use a bibliography. The difference in the formatting of entries between the two systems is the location of the date of the cited publication. In a bibliography, it goes at the end of an entry. In a references list in the author-date style, it goes right after the author's name, similar to APA style.

• What Is a Citation?
• What Is a Senior Thesis?
• Bibliography: Definition and Examples
• Formatting Papers in Chicago Style
• Turabian Style Guide With Examples
• MLA Bibliography or Works Cited
• APA In-Text Citations
• How to Write a Bibliography For a Science Fair Project
• MLA Sample Pages
• How to Use Block Quotations in Writing
• Writing a History Book Review
• Definition of Appendix in a Book or Written Work
• MLA Style Parenthetical Citations
• Tips for Typing an Academic Paper on a Computer
• Formatting APA Headings and Subheadings
• 140 Key Copyediting Terms and What They Mean

By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.

• U.S. Locations
• UMGC Europe
• Learn Online
• Find Answers
• 855-655-8682
• Current Students

Online Guide to Writing and Research

Academic integrity and documentation, explore more of umgc.

• Online Guide to Writing

Types of Documentation

Bibliographies and Source Lists

What is a bibliography.

A bibliography is a list of books and other source material that you have used in preparing a research paper. Sometimes these lists will include works that you consulted but did not cite specifically in your assignment. Consult the style guide required for your assignment to determine the specific title of your bibliography page as well as how to cite each source type. Bibliographies are usually placed at the end of your research paper.

What is an annotated bibliography?

A special kind of bibliography, the annotated bibliography, is often used to direct your readers to other books and resources on your topic. An instructor may ask you to prepare an annotated bibliography to help you narrow down a topic for your research assignment. Such bibliographies offer a few lines of information, typically 150-300 words, summarizing the content of the resource after the bibliographic entry.   

Example of Annotated Bibliographic Entry in MLA Style

Waddell, Marie L., Robert M. Esch, and Roberta R. Walker. The Art of Styling         Sentences: 20 Patterns for Success. 3rd ed. New York: Barron’s, 1993.         A comprehensive look at 20 sentence patterns and their variations to         teach students how to write effective sentences by imitating good style.

Mailing Address: 3501 University Blvd. East, Adelphi, MD 20783 This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License . © 2022 UMGC. All links to external sites were verified at the time of publication. UMGC is not responsible for the validity or integrity of information located at external sites.

Table of Contents: Online Guide to Writing

Chapter 1: College Writing

How Does College Writing Differ from Workplace Writing?

What Is College Writing?

Why So Much Emphasis on Writing?

Chapter 2: The Writing Process

Doing Exploratory Research

Getting from Notes to Your Draft

Introduction

Prewriting - Techniques to Get Started - Mining Your Intuition

Prewriting: Targeting Your Audience

Prewriting: Techniques to Get Started

Prewriting: Understanding Your Assignment

Rewriting: Being Your Own Critic

Rewriting: Creating a Revision Strategy

Rewriting: Getting Feedback

Rewriting: The Final Draft

Techniques to Get Started - Outlining

Techniques to Get Started - Using Systematic Techniques

Thesis Statement and Controlling Idea

Writing: Getting from Notes to Your Draft - Freewriting

Writing: Getting from Notes to Your Draft - Summarizing Your Ideas

Writing: Outlining What You Will Write

Chapter 3: Thinking Strategies

A Word About Style, Voice, and Tone

A Word About Style, Voice, and Tone: Style Through Vocabulary and Diction

Critical Strategies and Writing

Critical Strategies and Writing: Analysis

Critical Strategies and Writing: Evaluation

Critical Strategies and Writing: Persuasion

Critical Strategies and Writing: Synthesis

Developing a Paper Using Strategies

Kinds of Assignments You Will Write

Patterns for Presenting Information

Patterns for Presenting Information: Critiques

Patterns for Presenting Information: Discussing Raw Data

Patterns for Presenting Information: General-to-Specific Pattern

Patterns for Presenting Information: Problem-Cause-Solution Pattern

Patterns for Presenting Information: Specific-to-General Pattern

Patterns for Presenting Information: Summaries and Abstracts

Supporting with Research and Examples

Writing Essay Examinations

Writing Essay Examinations: Make Your Answer Relevant and Complete

Writing Essay Examinations: Organize Thinking Before Writing

Writing Essay Examinations: Read and Understand the Question

Chapter 4: The Research Process

Planning and Writing a Research Paper

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Ask a Research Question

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Cite Sources

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Collect Evidence

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Decide Your Point of View, or Role, for Your Research

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Draw Conclusions

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Find a Topic and Get an Overview

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Manage Your Resources

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Outline

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Survey the Literature

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Work Your Sources into Your Research Writing

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found? - Human Resources

Research Resources: What Are Research Resources?

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found?

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found? - Electronic Resources

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found? - Print Resources

Structuring the Research Paper: Formal Research Structure

Structuring the Research Paper: Informal Research Structure

The Nature of Research

The Research Assignment: How Should Research Sources Be Evaluated?

The Research Assignment: When Is Research Needed?

The Research Assignment: Why Perform Research?

Chapter 5: Academic Integrity

Academic Integrity

Giving Credit to Sources

Giving Credit to Sources: Copyright Laws

Giving Credit to Sources: Documentation

Giving Credit to Sources: Style Guides

Integrating Sources

Practicing Academic Integrity

Practicing Academic Integrity: Keeping Accurate Records

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material - Paraphrasing Your Source

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material - Quoting Your Source

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material - Summarizing Your Sources

Types of Documentation: Bibliographies and Source Lists

Types of Documentation: Citing World Wide Web Sources

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - APA Style

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - CSE/CBE Style

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - Chicago Style

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - MLA Style

Types of Documentation: Note Citations

Chapter 6: Using Library Resources

Finding Library Resources

Chapter 7: Assessing Your Writing

How Is Writing Graded?

How Is Writing Graded?: A General Assessment Tool

The Draft Stage

The Draft Stage: The First Draft

The Draft Stage: The Revision Process and the Final Draft

The Draft Stage: Using Feedback

The Research Stage

Using Assessment to Improve Your Writing

Chapter 8: Other Frequently Assigned Papers

Reviews and Reaction Papers: Article and Book Reviews

Reviews and Reaction Papers: Reaction Papers

Writing Arguments

Writing Arguments: Adapting the Argument Structure

Writing Arguments: Purposes of Argument

Writing Arguments: References to Consult for Writing Arguments

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Anticipate Active Opposition

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Determine Your Organization

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Develop Your Argument

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Introduce Your Argument

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - State Your Thesis or Proposition

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Write Your Conclusion

Writing Arguments: Types of Argument

Appendix A: Books to Help Improve Your Writing

Dictionaries

General Style Manuals

Researching on the Internet

Special Style Manuals

Writing Handbooks

Appendix B: Collaborative Writing and Peer Reviewing

Collaborative Writing: Assignments to Accompany the Group Project

Collaborative Writing: Informal Progress Report

Collaborative Writing: Issues to Resolve

Collaborative Writing: Methodology

Collaborative Writing: Peer Evaluation

Collaborative Writing: Tasks of Collaborative Writing Group Members

Collaborative Writing: Writing Plan

General Introduction

Peer Reviewing

Appendix C: Developing an Improvement Plan

Working with Your Instructor’s Comments and Grades

Appendix D: Writing Plan and Project Schedule

Devising a Writing Project Plan and Schedule

Reviewing Your Plan with Others

By using our website you agree to our use of cookies. Learn more about how we use cookies by reading our  Privacy Policy .

In order to continue enjoying our site, we ask that you confirm your identity as a human. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

Eight tips and questions for your bibliographic study in business and management research

• Open Access
• Published: 18 May 2020
• volume  70 ,  pages 307–312 ( 2020 )

You have full access to this open access article

• Jörn H. Block 1 , 2 , 3 &
• Christian Fisch 1 , 2  

9239 Accesses

67 Citations

2 Altmetric

Cite this article

Working on a manuscript.

Management Review Quarterly (MRQ) specializes in systematic literature reviews, meta analyses, replication studies, and bibliographic studies. Previous editorials published in MRQ provide authors with guidelines for performing systematic (narrative) literature reviews (Fisch and Block 2018 ) and replication studies (Block and Kuckertz 2018 ). In this editorial, we focus on bibliographic studies and outline eight tips that help authors to improve their bibliographic studies.

In contrast to systematic literature reviews, meta analyses, and replication studies, little information on best practices and guidelines exist on bibliographic studies (also known as bibliographic literature reviews). Over the last years, we saw a steady increase in the number of bibliographic studies submitted to MRQ. We attribute this rise to the better accessibility of bibliographic data and software packages that specialize in bibliographic analyses. Another antecedent of the increasing prevalence of bibliographic studies is the ongoing differentiation of business and management research into narrowly defined subdisciplines, which calls for studies that are interdisciplinary and ‘break the walls’. Well-conducted bibliographic studies can break those walls. They structure a field and detect links between disciplines, identify topic clusters, literature gaps and academic silos, and show the most impactful authors and their research. Yet, in contrast to narrative literature reviews, bibliographic literature reviews use quantitative and statistical methods to achieve this goal.

We currently observe a considerable heterogeneity in the type and quality of bibliographic studies submitted to MRQ. These submissions range from systematic narrative literature reviews erroneously labeled as bibliographic ones to purely technical citation analyses with little interpretation and discussion of the state of the art in the respective research field. Hence, there seems to be confusion in business and management research as to what a bibliographic study is and what defines its quality. The goal of this editorial is to reduce this confusion and help future authors of MRQ to craft bibliographic studies of high quality. In line with earlier MRQ editorials, we organize this editorial in eight tips and questions. Specifically, we outline suggestions that we perceive as crucial for every bibliographic study published in MRQ. Since bibliographic studies rely on a systematic collection of articles, this editorial shares many similarities with our editorial on systematic narrative literature reviews (Fisch and Block 2018 ) as well as as the editorial’s discussion and extension by Clark et al. ( 2020 ). We summarize the main commonalities and differences of the two forms of literature reviews in Table  1 .

Is your study really a bibliographic study? Although the term ‘bibliographic study’ is widely used in academic research, a clear definition is lacking. MRQ is interested in bibliographic studies, which we define as systematic literature reviews that analyze bibliographic data with bibliometric methods. Bibliographic data include, amongst others, author names, journal names, article titles, article keywords, article abstracts, and article publication years. These bibliographic data are collected and made available by bibliographic databases such as Web of Science (WoS) or Scopus. These databases also provide citation data. Bibliometric methods rely on statistical methods to analyze bibliographic and citation data. As noted above, many manuscripts submitted to MRQ are erroneously labeled as bibliographic studies as they do not use bibliometric (= statistical) methods and only provide lists of important and impactful studies, authors, topics, and journals. Compiling and providing such lists is an essential first step but does not qualify your study as a bibliographic study. Also, bibliographic studies should not be confused with annotated bibliographies, which comprise a list of references to important studies followed by a brief description of their content. MRQ sees annotated bibliographies as an important element of systematic narrative literature reviews.

Is your main research goal really to summarize the structure of a research field? Literature reviews can summarize the content and structure of a particular research field. While a narrative literature review aims to summarize the content of the studies of a particular research field, a bibliographic literature review focuses on assessing the structure of a particular research field. A description and summary of “simple” bibliographic data (e.g., authors, journal names) is too superficial to derive specific answers to particular research questions. Article titles, keywords, and abstracts are already more informative and can, for example, be used to identify topic clusters. Citation data helps to identify impactful articles, authors, and journals. Such data also facilitates the identification of topic clusters and allows the measurement of knowledge diffusion within and between disciplines.

Provide and motivate a research goal and explain why a bibliographic study is needed to achieve this goal. Your article’s abstract and introduction have an important motivational function. As such, carefully begin your study by delineating and motivating your research goal. In particular, carefully explain why you choose a bibliographic literature review to achieve this goal. In other words: inform the reader that the analysis of bibliographic data with bibliometric methods provides important insights regarding your research goal. In general, bibliographic studies are particularly useful to describe the structure of a research field (see tip 2 above) and its development over time because they help to identify topic clusters, author networks, literature gaps, and academic silos.

Identify the relevant literature in a broad, systematic, and reproducible way . A bibliographic study is a particular form of a systematic literature review. Hence, the literature search process should be transparent and reproducible. A detailed account of the search strategy is needed, which includes a description of the databases used, the search terms, and inclusion/exclusion criteria. Footnote 1 In particular, carefully choose your bibliographic database. For example, Scopus often has a broader coverage of journals than WoS and if you leave out some of the most important journals, that’s a problem. Note that the application of screening or inclusion criteria (e.g., only focusing on highly ranked journals) should be well-justified because the screening criteria can have crucial implications for the bibliographic data obtained and the results of the quantitative, bibliometric analysis that follows. Since bibliographic studies rely on a quantitative and objective approach to summarize the structure and trends of a field, the systematic approach to identifying the literature is, in our view, even more important than in interpretative and narrative forms of literature reviews. We also believe that the literature covered should be broader than in narrative literature reviews, for example, with regard to the journals or publication years considered.

Provide a map of the research field. While original empirical research articles typically begin their results section with descriptive statistics, bibliographic studies should commence with a description of the studies under investigation (i.e., a map of the field). For example, a good strategy is to provide a chronological view of the field (e.g., how has the number of studies evolved, how have the topics evolved, how have the outlets evolved), and to give an overview of the most influential authors, journals, and publications. The outline can be sorted by multiple criteria, such as the number of papers or different citation measures. Notice that different types of citation data exist and that you need to defend your approach and source of citation data. In our view, this map of the field is a critical part of any bibliographic study. Yet, a bibliographic study should not stop at that stage. Instead, you should use the map of the field as a starting point to dig deeper into your bibliographic data using bibliometric methods, as outlined in tip 6.

Clearly specify the methodological steps of your bibliometric analysis. As with most empirical and statistical analyses, performing a bibliometric analysis requires taking various methodological choices. For example, authors need to choose a software and need to carefully prepare the data to be used in the analysis, such as the keywords of articles used. Make a sensible choice about which keywords to include in the analysis. For example, including your original search terms as keywords may produce trivial results. While a lot of graphical illustrations exist in the field of bibliographic studies (e.g., to visualize citation clusters or links between authors), sometimes tables can be easier to understand and interpret than figures (which are also often in color and difficult to print). Carefully outline and motivate the choices made in this regard.

Use the full potential and range of bibliometric methods. A bibliographic study should rely on statistical tools to derive results. Hence, you should go beyond simple article and citation counts. Such measures can be used to provide a map of the field (see tip 5), but the main part of the bibliometric analysis should be build on more sophisticated, multivariate statistical analyses. Bibliometric or scientometric analysis has developed into a discipline itself and specialized journals exist, such as Scientometrics and the Journal of Informetrics. Some commonly applied bibliometric methods, which we would like to also see in MRQ manuscripts, include co-citation analysis, co-occurrence analysis, and bibliometric coupling. We require authors of bibliographic studies to use such methods as a basis for their statements about the structure as well as the thematic clusters and gaps in the field. Yet, try to use these tools in a meaningful way. Simply displaying sophisticated tables, figures, and graphs derived from bibliometric software tools can lead to an overly descriptive and confusing picture of the field. Try to identify a relevant and interesting “story” that is supported by your bibliographic data and bibliometric analyses. Good examples of articles that have followed this approach are Aliyev et al. ( 2019 ), Block et al. ( 2019 ), and Kumar et al. ( 2019 ).

The bibliometric analysis needs to serve a purpose and needs to contribute to your research goal. The bibliometric analysis is the core of a bibliographic study. The most common mistake we see in manuscripts submitted to MRQ is that authors perform bibliometric analyses for the sake of performing bibliometric analyses. We are not interested in such manuscripts because they do not structure the knowledge in our field, do not lead to a discussion of where we are and what we know, and do not provide an agenda for future research. Hence, make sure that your bibliometric analysis contributes to the overall goal of MRQ. Like a systematic narrative literature review, bibliographic studies must go beyond a mere descriptive summary of prior literature. They require the authors to interpret and discuss the development and state of the field and give suggestions for meaningful future research.

See Fisch and Block ( 2018 ) and the references cited therein for more tips on systematic literature search.

Aliyev F, Urkmez T, Wagner R (2019) A comprehensive look at luxury brand marketing research from 2000 to 2016: a bibliometric study and content analysis. Manag Rev Q 69(3):233–264

Article   Google Scholar  

Block J, Kuckertz A (2018) Seven principles of effective replication studies: strengthening the evidence base of management research. Manag Rev Q 68(4):355–359

Block J, Fisch C, Rehan F (2019) Religion and entrepreneurship: a map of the field and a bibliometric analysis. Manag Rev Q. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-019-00177-2 (forthcoming)

Clark WR, Clark LA, Raffo DM, Williams RI (2020) Extending Fisch and Block’s (2018) tips for a systematic review in management and business literature. Manag Rev Q. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-020-00184-8 (forthcoming)

Fisch C, Block J (2018) Six tips for your (systematic) literature review in business and management research. Manag Rev Q 68(2):103–106

Kumar S, Sureka R, Colombage S (2019) Capital structure of SMEs: a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis. Manag Rev Q. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-019-00175-4E (forthcoming)

Download references

Acknowledgements

Open Access funding provided by Projekt DEAL.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Faculty of Management, Trier University, 54296, Trier, Germany

Jörn H. Block & Christian Fisch

Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Wittener Institut für Familienunternehmen (WIFU), Universität Witten/Herdecke, Alfred-Herrhausen-Str. 50, 58448, Witten, Germany

Jörn H. Block

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jörn H. Block .

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Block, J.H., Fisch, C. Eight tips and questions for your bibliographic study in business and management research. Manag Rev Q 70 , 307–312 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-020-00188-4

Download citation

Published : 18 May 2020

Issue Date : August 2020

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-020-00188-4

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Find a journal
• Publish with us

• Cambridge Dictionary +Plus

Meaning of bibliographic in English

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio

• This will allow researchers to capture bibliographic references for citing in papers and reports that they write.
• Keywords can be searched in English or French with full bibliographic citations .
• User access to the library's bibliographic data is currently by means of a card catalog .
• The database is a large collection of bibliographic records and location holdings for the worldwide network of libraries .
• This is the world's largest database of bibliographic information .
• acknowledgment
• acknowledgments phrase
• bibliographically
• bibliography

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Examples of bibliographic

Word of the Day

someone's true colors

the kind of person someone really is rather than what the person seems to be

Tossing and turning (Talking about sleep, Part 3)

Learn more with +Plus

• Recent and Recommended {{#preferredDictionaries}} {{name}} {{/preferredDictionaries}}
• Definitions Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English English Learner’s Dictionary Essential British English Essential American English
• Grammar and thesaurus Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English Grammar Thesaurus
• Pronunciation British and American pronunciations with audio English Pronunciation
• English–Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Simplified)–English
• English–Chinese (Traditional) Chinese (Traditional)–English
• English–Dutch Dutch–English
• English–French French–English
• English–German German–English
• English–Indonesian Indonesian–English
• English–Italian Italian–English
• English–Japanese Japanese–English
• English–Norwegian Norwegian–English
• English–Polish Polish–English
• English–Portuguese Portuguese–English
• English–Spanish Spanish–English
• Dictionary +Plus Word Lists
• English    Adjective
• All translations

Add bibliographic to one of your lists below, or create a new one.

{{message}}

Something went wrong.

There was a problem sending your report.

• To save this word, you'll need to log in. Log In

bibliographica

Definition of bibliographica

Word history.

New Latin, from neuter plural of bibliographicus bibliographic, from International Scientific Vocabulary bibliographic

Love words?

You must — there are over 200,000 words in our free online dictionary, but you are looking for one that’s only in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary.

Start your free trial today and get unlimited access to America's largest dictionary, with:

• More than 250,000 words that aren't in our free dictionary
• Expanded definitions, etymologies, and usage notes
• Advanced search features

Dictionary Entries Near bibliographica

bibliographer

bibliography

Cite this Entry

“Bibliographica.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bibliographica. Accessed 28 Aug. 2023.

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Can you solve 4 words at once?

Word of the day.

See Definitions and Examples »

Get Word of the Day daily email!