Guides for preparing your bibliography - The art of having a style

[Dialogues]
Anna: Hello
The librarian: Hello
Anna: I just have a question about this bibliography.
The librarian: Well, there are a number of ways to create a bibliography. Each discipline has its own recipe.
The librarian: Like most goods produced in today's world, knowledge has its own precise standards, which you better respect.
Anna: You know what, Fred? In a bibliography, everything has to have the same form. Always the same form. 

[Voice-over]		
We agree with what you’re trying to do, Anna, but maybe we should talk about your form…

There are a number of citation style guides, and it’s up to you to find out which one is used in your discipline. Ask the teacher or assistant who is supervising your work to make sure you use the right style.

Don’t forget that a bibliography, or reference list, is an integral part of your paper and will be evaluated. It would be a shame to lose points because of a formatting problem.

In a properly prepared bibliography, the references must be uniform, precise and complete.

In any academic paper, you need to include two complementary elements in order to cite your sources:
•	The in-text references, which you insert into the body of the document in a shortened form after each quotation or paraphrase.
•	The bibliography, which appears at the end of the document (after the conclusion but before the annexes). It contains the full references for all the sources that you cited in a shortened form in the text. These references should allow your sources to be unambiguously identified and found by someone else.

In-text citation formats.

There are two general formats that are used for the short-form in-text references:

•	The author-date format is used most often in the social sciences and humanities. In this format, the author’s name and the year of publication appear in parentheses directly after a quotation or paraphrase.

•	 The numeric format is most often used in the exact sciences. After each quotation or paraphrase, a number appears that corresponds to an entry in the bibliography at the end of the paper.

When it comes to preparing the full references for the bibliography, there are several different citation styles. The styles vary in the order of the elements, the elements required and the punctuation used.

To illustrate, we will present the same reference formatted using different styles:

Here we see the ISO 690 referencing standard:

TRUSS, Lynne, 2006. Eats, shoots & leaves: the zero tolerance approach to punctuation. New York: Gotham Books. ISBN 978-1-59-240203-8.  

Here is APA style (from the American Psychological Association):

TRUSS, L. (2006). Eats, shoots & leaves: The zero tolerance approach to punctuation. New York: Gotham Books.

The elements appear in the same order, but here only the author’s first initial is used and the year is in parentheses. The ISBN (the International Standard Book Number) is not needed here.

And here is Vancouver style (which is most often used in biomedicine):

1. Truss L. Eats, shoots & leaves: The zero tolerance approach to punctuation. New York: Gotham Books; 2006. 240 p.

Unlike the first 2 styles, Vancouver uses the numeric format. 

The reference begins with a number that corresponds to an in-text citation. In this style, the year comes after the publisher and the title is not in italics.

Whichever style you choose, you must apply it systematically throughout your paper. 

Remember to start noting down the full references for the sources you use from your very first day of research. You can use reference management software to help you. 

The days before you have to hand in a paper are usually very stressful. Save yourself the ordeal of having to put together your references at the last minute.

[Dialogues]
Fred: You know what? Do this one, too.