You should compile a bibliography when writing an essay, article, or research paper that relies heavily on source material. A bibliography is an alphabetized list of sources that have been used to compile data, typically in an article, essay, or research paper. This list is found at the end of the work and allows the person reviewing the data to verify the veracity of the statements and/or figures presented in the data itself. It also allows a writer to give proper credit for quotes or key phrases that have been written and presented in a source that they may have referenced in their paper so as to avoid plagiarism.
Bibliography for Books
The basic information you should cite when referencing a book includes; the author (surname first, followed by their given name or initials), the book title (in italics), the publisher, as well as the place and date of publication. Each section should be followed by a full stop. Your citation should look like this:
Smith, John Jacob Jingleheimer. Wu Xia and the Art of Scooter Maintenance. New York: Springer, 2003.
Note how the first line is not indented, but subsequent lines are. This is the format for all multiple line citations, regardless of the source of the information.
Multiple Authors
Should the source have more than one author, your citation should appear as follows:
Smith, John Jacob Jingleheimer, and Cindy Lu. Wu Xia and the Art of Scooter Maintenance. New York: Springer, 2003.
If there are more than two authors for your source, note your citation as follows:
Smith, John Jacob Jingleheimer et. al. Wu Xia and the Art of Scooter Maintenance. New York: Springer, 2003.
Occasionally, you will come across a source without a listed author; this is especially common when citing newspaper articles and articles from the internet. When this happens, you should simply move to the next step of your citation.
Bibliography for Newspaper & Magazine Articles
For newspapers and