Bibliographies

Your bibliography is the list of sources that you consulted while researching and writing your paper. This always appears after the body of your paper, and after any appendices, if you have them, and begin on a new sheet of paper.

What goes in a bibliography

There are two different schools of thought about what resources ought to be listed in a bibliography. One says that you should only list those works that you quote from in your paper. The other says that you should list all of the materials that you consulted while writing your paper, regardless of whether or not you quoted from them. There are advantages and drawbacks to either approach. If you only list items that you quoted from, then you may be overlooking sources that were very valuable and informative that you simply happened to not take quotes from. But if you list all of the sources that you consulted - whether or not you used quotes from them in your paper - then the door is left open to bibliography padding. This is the practice of putting sources in a bibliography that were not actually used for the sake of lengthening the bibliography and presenting the image of more extensive research then may actually have been done. When in doubt about what you should include in your bibliography, you should always ask your teacher.

Different formats

There are three basic accepted styles for bibliographies: APA, MLA, and Chicago Style. Be sure to check with your teacher before you start to build your bibliography to see which style is preferred.

See these pages for examples of bibliography entries in APA and MLA styles.

Useful tools

A Guide for Writing Research Papers Based on Modern Language Association (MLA) Documentation Prepared by the Humanities Department and the Arthur C. Banks Jr. Library Capital Community College Hartford, Connecticut
A Guide for Writing Research Papers based on Styles Recommended by The American Psychological Association Prepared by the Humanities Department and the Arthur C. Banks Jr. Library Capital Community College Hartford, Connecticut

The following useful websites have been provided by Mott Community College Library to assist you in building your bibliography.

Citation Machine: provides a menu for type of material, such as book, magazine article, website, etc., and a "fill-in-the-blank" form that displays the final citation in both APA and MLA style. Great for comparing the differences between the two standards.

BibBuilder: has many tips for how to research a paper, and how to use MS Word to format your paper. Also gives tips for how to evaluate information, particularly Internet web pages.

Online! A reference guide to using the Internet: is more of a writer's reference work then a citation builder. Provides explanations on how to construct citations in MLA, APA, Chicago Style, and others.