How to Write a Bibliography and Works Cited — List Your Sources

Elementary

When you write a paper, you read books and web pages to learn.

At the end of your paper, you make a list of the books and pages you used.

That list has a name. In MLA style, it is called Works Cited.

The list tells your reader what you used. Then your reader can find the same books and pages.

Put the list in ABC order. Use the author's last name to sort it.

A book — the simple pattern

Write it like this:

Author's last name, first name. Title of the book. Publisher, year it came out.

Example:

Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House. MacMurray, 1999.

The book title is in italics. Italics are slanted letters.

A web page — the simple pattern

Write it like this:

Author's last name, first name. “Title of the page.” Name of the website, web address.

Example:

Lundman, Susan. “How to Make Vegetarian Chili.” eHow, www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html.

The page title goes inside quotation marks. The website name is in italics.

Your teacher picks the style. Use the style your teacher asked for.

Middle School

This band teaches MLA style. MLA calls the list at the end of your paper the Works Cited page.

Every work you cite in your paper must be on the list. Every entry on the list must match a work in your paper.

MLA does not use a different rule for every kind of source. It uses one list of core elements, in one order, for all sources.

The MLA core elements, in order

Build each entry from these parts. Skip a part if your source does not have it.

• 1. Author. Who made the work. Start with the last name, then a comma, then the rest of the name. End with a period.
• 2. Title of source. The name of the book, article, or page. End with a period.
• 3. Title of container, The bigger whole the source lives in, like a journal or a website. It is usually in italics. End with a comma.
• 4. Other contributors, Other helpers to name, like an editor or a translator.
• 5. Version, An edition or version of the work, if it has one.
• 6. Number, A volume or issue number, if it has one. Journals use “vol.” and “no.”
• 7. Publisher, The group that produces the source or sends it out to the public.
• 8. Publication date, The date the source came out.
• 9. Location. Where to find it. For print, this is page numbers. For online work, this is the web address.

Only commas and periods separate the parts. The first two parts end with a period. Most of the rest end with a comma.

A book title goes in italics. An article title or a web page title goes in quotation marks. The container name follows in italics.

Entry for a book

Pattern: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication Date.

Example: Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House. MacMurray, 1999.

A book that stands alone has no container. Leave the container part out.

Entry for a web page

Pattern: Author. “Title of Page.” Name of Website, web address.

Example: Lundman, Susan. “How to Make Vegetarian Chili.” eHow, www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html.

The page is the source. The website is its container.

Entry for a journal article

Pattern: Author. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal, vol. number, no. number, Year, pp. page–page.

Example: Bagchi, Alaknanda. “Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu.” Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, vol. 15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 41-50.

The article is the source. The journal is its container.

Setting up the Works Cited page

• Start the list on its own page at the end of your paper.
• Write Works Cited at the top, in the center. Do not use italics or quotation marks for those words.
• Put the entries in ABC order, by the author's last name.
• Use a hanging indent. The first line of each entry starts at the left. The rest of the lines move in by half an inch (0.5 inches).
• End each entry with a period.

Practice

Tap a question to see the answer. No scores. No data is kept.

High School and College

This band shows two styles side by side. MLA 9th edition calls its list Works Cited. APA 7th edition calls its list References.

Do not mix the two styles in one paper. Use the style your teacher asked for.

The two styles at a glance

MLA 9 — core elements in full

MLA is built on a container model and a set of nine core elements. Use the elements in this order. Give each element the punctuation shown.

• 1. Author.
• 2. Title of source.
• 3. Title of container,
• 4. Other contributors,
• 5. Version,
• 6. Number,
• 7. Publisher,
• 8. Publication date,
• 9. Location.

Begin the entry with the author's last name, followed by a comma and the rest of the name, as presented in the work. End this element with a period.

A container is the larger whole in which the source is located. A journal is a container. A website is a container. A container can sit inside a larger container, like a journal found in a database.

The publisher produces or distributes the source to the public. Do not list a publisher for periodicals. Do not list a publisher for a website when the website title is the same name as its publisher.

Location must be as specific as you can make it. An article in a journal takes page numbers. The location of an online work is its web address.

Two details are optional. You may add the date you accessed an online source, written with the word “Accessed” and the date. The MLA Handbook recommends including web addresses for online sources. If a source has a DOI, use the DOI instead of a web address.

For a book with two authors, list the authors in the order the book gives. The first author is last name first. The rest are in normal order. For three or more authors, list only the first author, then “et al.”

MLA 9 — Works Cited page rules

• Begin the Works Cited page on a separate page at the end of your paper. Keep the same one-inch margins and the same last name, page number header as the rest of your paper.
• Label the page Works Cited. Center the words at the top. Do not italicize them or put them in quotation marks. Only the title is centered. The entries stay at the left margin.
• Double-space all citations. Do not skip spaces between entries.
• Indent the second line and all lines after it by 0.5 inches. This makes a hanging indent.
• Sort entries in ABC order by the first item in the entry, usually the author's last name.
• All entries end with a period.
• Write author names with the last name first. Do not add titles like Dr. or degrees like PhD to a name.
• For a span of pages, use “pp.” and a hyphen, like pp. 225-50. For one page, use “p.”

MLA 9 — patterns and worked examples

Book. Pattern: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication Date. Do not list a container for a book that stands alone, like a novel.

Example: Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House. MacMurray, 1999.

Web page. Pattern: Author. “Title of Page.” Title of Website, web address.

Example: Lundman, Susan. “How to Make Vegetarian Chili.” eHow, www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html.

Journal article. Pattern: Author(s). “Title of Article.” Title of Journal, vol. Volume, no. Issue, Year, pp. Pages.

Example: Bagchi, Alaknanda. “Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu.” Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, vol. 15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 41-50.

APA 7 — reference list basics

The reference list sits at the end of your paper. It gives the information a reader needs to locate and retrieve any source you cite. Each source you cite in your paper must appear in the list. Each entry in the list must be cited in your text.

• Begin the list on a new page. Label the page “References” in bold, centered at the top. Do not underline the title or put it in quotation marks.
• Double-space all text, just like the rest of your essay.
• Use a hanging indentation. All lines after the first line of each entry move in one-half inch from the left margin.
• Invert all author names: last name first. Write first and middle names as initials only. Jane Marie Smith becomes Smith, J. M.
• List the last name and initials for all authors, up to and including 20 authors. Separate names with commas. Use an ampersand (&) before the last author's name.
• Sort entries in ABC order by the last name of the first author. For more than one work by the same author, sort by date, earliest first.
• Italicize titles of longer works, like books. Do not italicize, underline, or put quotation marks around titles of shorter works, like chapters or essays in a collection.

Journal articles have special rules in APA. Give journal titles in full, and italicize them. Keep any unusual punctuation and capitalization the journal itself uses in its title. Capitalize all major words in journal titles. For the article title, capitalize only the first word of the title and subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash, and proper nouns. Do not italicize the article title. Do not put it in quotes.

So an article called “Deep Blue: The Mysteries of the Marianas Trench” is written: Deep blue: The mysteries of the Marianas Trench. Its journal is written in full, in italics, with all major words capitalized.

APA 7 does not require the words “Retrieved from” before a web address or a DOI. When you can, give the year, month, and date. If the month and date are not available, give the year alone. If no date is listed, use (n.d.).

APA 7 — patterns and worked examples

Book. Pattern: Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher Name.

Example: Stoneman, R. (2008). Alexander the Great: A life in legend. Yale University Press.

Web page. Pattern: Lastname, F. M. (Year, Month Date). Title of page. Site Name. URL

Example: Price, D. (2018, March 23). Laziness does not exist. Medium. https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01

If the author is a group or organization, use the group name as the author. If the author and the site name are the same, leave the site name out.

Journal article. Pattern: Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

Give the DOI after the page numbers if one has been assigned to the article. APA 7 advises including a DOI when one is available, even for a print source. If there is no DOI and you read the article online, use the web address of the site you took it from.

Example (this article has no DOI, so none is shown): Scruton, R. (1996). The eclipse of listening. The New Criterion, 15(3), 5-13.

Practice

Tap a question to see the answer. No scores. No data is kept.