How to Write a Bibliography

Series Summary

Good writing is an important skill that can be used in a variety of media. Whether it's writing a meeting agenda, a toast or a magazine article, the ability to effectively communicate to a large audience stems from knowledge and execution of proper writing techniques. With such knowledge comes an understanding of the distinct differences in writing styles between creative writing, journalism, technical writing and informal writing. In this free video series, a produced playwright discusses how to write several academic documents. Learn to write a basic paragraph, essay and term paper, and find out the best ways to write proposals and grants. Get through an all-nighter with expert advice on writing a 10-page term paper in a single evening by concentrating on quality rather than quantity. Even get creative writing advice, like how to write a romance novel and how to develop a treatment for a film. For any academic writing needs, consult these informative tips for scholarly documents.

Video Transcript

"Hi. This is Laura Turner, and today I want to talk to you about how to writing a bibliography. The bibliography is a long list of references for a particularly longer paper. And the way to do it are several ways, actually. Let's look at my example. First of all, this is much like just a standard work side of the page. You're going to go ahead and write your author's name (shows example). So, Armstrong, (comma) WA, his first and middle initials, the way his name is spelled. And this particular one is actually from a scholarly journal, so it's (the title) in quotation marks. And so I put the actual title of the article in quotation marks, and then the journal from which it came, underlined. OK. So, I did this in standard APA format, I believe. And then, you list your volume and then your number and then the date of publication, followed by a colon, and the pages which you referenced. OK? And also, something different for your books. When you're citing a book, like for example, this Bevington, David Bevington. David Bevington did not write this entire anthology. He was just an editor. So, you're going to write Bevington, David, (comma) ed. And then you're going to underline the title. And then give the publishing information, which is found in the front of the book. New York, W.W. Norton and Company, (comma), 2002, the date of publication. These can get quite extensive. They can get very long. The particular bibliography I'm citing from now was about four pages long, containing, you know, over thirty sources. And that's just for a standard, you know, thesis paper. For a book, like the book I have here, the bibliography can be much, much longer. And I'm assuming you've probably never going to do one like this, but I'd like to show it to you anyway, because the format is very interesting. The selected bibliography shows lists, in alphabetical order, the authors of letters, interviews, surveys of criticism and so, anthologies, and then scholarly and critical studies. So, this bibliography actually breaks it down into even further categories and sub-categories that are formatted in the same way. So, if you have a particularly large paper, you might want to consider making other headings to keep your stuff in line. And that's how, in general, to write a bibliography."