A bibliography is a list of sources you used in compiling a document. You should arrange the bibliography in alphabetical order by the author’s last name or, if there is no author, by the first main word of the title. You can ignore A, And, and The in a title.

There are several bibliographic styles, and your instructor may prefer a specific one. Be sure to find out what style you should use. Don’t mix styles because you may confuse your reader. The examples in this bibliography are written in the Modern Language Association (MLA) style, which is commonly used in the arts and humanities. The rules for an MLA bibliography style are:

<![if !supportLists]>·       <![endif]>Double-space all entries.

<![if !supportLists]>·       <![endif]>Use hanging indent paragraph styles (the first line of the paragraph is aligned with the left margin, and all subsequent lines are indented .5 inches from the left margin)

<![if !supportLists]>·       <![endif]>Type authors’ last names first, with the last and first names separated by a comma, unless there are two or more authors. For references that have multiple authors, type the last name first for the first author, and type subsequent names with the first name first.

<![if !supportLists]>·       <![endif]>Type titles’ full names and begin each important word with a capital letter.

<![if !supportLists]>·       <![endif]>Use italics or underlines for the titles of books and periodicals.

<![if !supportLists]>·       <![endif]>Enclose titles of periodical articles in quotation marks.

<![if !supportLists]>·       <![endif]>Type any publication information (place of publication, publisher’s name, year, and so on) after each reference title.

<![if !supportLists]>·       <![endif]>Separate each portion of each bibliography entry with a period followed by two spaces.

Below are example entries for different kinds of material you might need to include in a bibliography.  To and then replace the following reference examples with your own references using the format indicated in create your bibliography, delete the guideline information in this paragraph and in the paragraphs above, the examples

Basic format for books

Author last name, first name.  (year of publication).  Title.  City: Publishing Company.

A book with one author

Zambroski, Ray.  (1959).  Sarah Akhtar: a Biography.  New York: Five Lakes Publishing.

A book with two or more authors

Abbar, Annas and Kim Hightower.  (2000).  Photographic Essays of the End of a Century.  Atlanta: Lakes & Sons.

A book with an editor

Chor, Anthony  (Ed.).  (1991).  Writing Clearly: Bullets, White Space and Common Sense.  New York: Scootney Publishing.

A translation of a book

Ben-Sachar, Ido.  (1939).  Nunummy Nibh.  (John Tippett and Carole Polard, trans.)   Boston: Jean-Paul Deloria.

An anonymous book

The Chicago Manual of Style: Fourteenth Edition.  (1993).  Chicago: The University of  Chicago Press.

A later edition of a book

Cooper, Scott.  (1988).  Computer Graphics  (new revised edition).  Seattle: Litware, Inc.

A work in more than one volume

Greenberg, Richard.  (1961).  Myth in Children’s Literature  (Vols. 1-2).  Boston: Ramona  Publishing.

A signed article in a journal

Con, Aaron.  (1984).  “The effect of pesticides on air quality.”  Consolidated Messenger, 20, 244-60.

A signed article in a monthly magazine

Shelly, Daniel B. (1994).  “Hardware innovations.”  Awesome Computers, March 1995, Number 11, p. 7.

A signed article in a daily newspaper

Mughal, Salman  (1994, December 27).  “Speculation and development.”  Island Hopper  News  section D, p. 1.

An unsigned article

“The role of weather in economics.”  (1981, December 14).  Kimball Museum of Science,  Quarterly Journal, Volume IV, 16-21.

A film or videotape

Castaneda, Marea Angela (Supervising Director), and Megan Sherman (Producer).  (1937).  Mom’s Kitchen.  [Videotape].  Burbank, CA: School of Fine Art.

Computer software

Microsoft Works 2000  (1987-1999).  [Computer program].  Redmond, WA: Microsoft

            Corporation.

<![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]>

<![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]>