HOW TO PREPARE A BIBLIOGRAPHY

Definition:
A bibliography is a list of all of the sources you have used (whether referenced or not) in the
process of researching your work. In general, a bibliography should include:
• the authors' names
• the titles of the works
• the names and locations of the companies that published your copies of the sources
• the dates your copies were published
• the page numbers of your sources (if they are part of multi-source volumes)

Annotated Bibliography:
• An annotated bibliography is the same as a bibliography with one important
difference: in an annotated bibliography, the bibliographic information is followed by
a brief description of the content, quality, and usefulness of the source.

How is a Bibliography Different from a "Works Cited" or "References" List?

• The ‘Works Cited’ or ‘References’ list is only comprised of references to those items
actually cited in the paper.
• A Bibliography has a wider scope than the two because it includes those texts which
may not have been cited in the paper/chapter, but provide a useful, theoretical
insight which functions as the foundation of one’s analysis.

How to Prepare a Bibliography

• Make a list to keep track of all the books, magazines, journal articles, blogs etc. that
you read as you follow your background research plan. Later this list of sources will
become your bibliography.
• Write down, photocopy, or print the following information for each source you find.
• A bibliography is prepared following a particular documentation style that may be
followed by researchers in the particular field.
• This brings us to the question: What is a documentation style?
 Documentation Style – Definition

• A documentation style is a standard approach to the citation of sources that the

author of a paper has consulted, abstracted, or quoted from. It prescribes methods
for citing references within the text, providing a list of works cited at the end of the
paper, and even formatting headings and margins.
• There are three documentation styles that are used more often than others. These
three styles are: MLA, APA and CMS
• MLA – Modern Languages Association –generally used by the Humanities.
• APA –American Psychological Association –generally used in the field of Education,
Psychology, and Sciences.
• CMS –Chicago Manual Style –generally used by Business, History, and the Fine Arts.

Why is Documentation Important? OR Why is a Bibliography Important?

• It is important to fully understand the documentation style to be used in your paper,
and to apply it consistently.
• Furthermore, documentation styles allow you to give credit for secondary sources
you have used in writing your paper.
• Citing sources not only gives credit where it’s due, but also allows your reader to
locate the sources you have consulted. In short, the reader of your paper must be
able to use the information you provide, both in the text and in appended list(s), to
duplicate the research you have done.

What All needs to be Documented?

In general, you must document information that originates in someone else’s work. All
of the following should be accompanied by a reference to the original:
• Direct quotations
• Paraphrases and summaries
• Information and ideas that are not common knowledge or are not available in a
standard reference work
• Any borrowed material that might appear to be your own if there were no citation
 How is a Bibliography different from Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Footnotes are placed at the bottom of the page after superscripting the phrase or the
term it explains. Endnotes are placed after conclusion of the chapter/article/book.
However, both footnotes and endnotes are usually employed to offer further
information on the topic which may disrupt the flow of ideas if included in the main
body of the text.
A bibliography, on the other hand, is prepared to help the reader locate the sources
of information, and is placed at the end of the article/book

What is a Citation?
• A citation is a reference to a published or unpublished source. Generally the
combination of both the in-body citation and the bibliographic entry constitutes
what is commonly thought of as a citation (whereas bibliographic entries by
themselves are not).
• Citations have several important purposes: to uphold intellectual honesty (or
avoiding plagiarism), to attribute prior or unoriginal work and ideas to the correct
sources, to allow the reader to determine independently whether the referenced
material supports the author's argument in the claimed way, and to help the reader
gauge the strength and validity of the material the author has used.

Examples of Bibliographic Entries for Books

• Gillespie, Paula, and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. Allyn
and Bacon, 2000. (MLA Style)
• Plath, S. (2000). The Unabridged Journals. K. V. Kukil (Ed.). New York, NY: Anchor.
(APA Style)
• Lash, Scott and John Urry, Economies of Signs & Space (London: Sage Publications,
1994), 241-51. (Chicago Style)
*In Chicago style, you can also choose NOT to reverse the first author’s name.

Information Included
• Information usually included in Bibliographic Entries irrespective of the
documentation style is as under:
1) Author’s name
2) Edition
3) Name of the Editor
 4) Name of the article/book/chapter that is being cited
5) Name of the publisher
6) Year of publication
7) Place of Publication
8) Volume Number and Page Number in case of a journal article.

Points to Remember
• Each documentation style prescribes a different manner in which this information is
arranged and presented.
• Documentation styles usually prescribe different manner of citations for books,
chapters from a book, magazine articles, journal articles, newspaper articles, blogs
etc.

Some Commonly Used Style Guides for Legal Research

1) The Bluebook
The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, a style guide, prescribes the most
widely used legal citation system in the United States. The Bluebook is compiled by
the Harvard Law Review Association, the Columbia Law Review, the University of
Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal. Currently, it is in its 20th edition.
It is so named because its cover is blue.
• You can visit the following website for further information on the same:
https://www.ukessays.com/referencing/bluebook/

2) ALWD (Association of Legal Writing Directors) Guide to Legal Citation

Formerly ALWD Citation Manual, is a style guide providing a legal citation system for
the United States, compiled by the Association of Legal Writing Directors. Its first
edition was published in 2000, under editor Darby Dickerson. Its sixth edition, under
editor Coleen M. Barger, was released in May 2017.
It primarily competes with the Bluebook style. Citations in the two formats are
roughly similar. However, ALWD differs from Bluebook in one key respect: Under the
Bluebook system, the type styles used in citations found in academic legal articles
(always footnoted) are very different from those used in citations within court
documents (always cited inline). While the ALWD system follows the standard
 convention of footnotes within academic articles and inline citations in court
documents, it rejects Bluebook's insistence on using different type styles in the two
classes of documents. The ALWD type style is identical to that used in the Bluebook
system for citations within court documents.
3) The Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA)
This is a style guide that provides the modern method of legal citation in the United
Kingdom; the style itself is also referred to as OSCOLA. First developed by Peter Birks
of the University of Oxford Faculty of Law, and now in its 4th edition, it has been
adopted by most law schools and many legal publishers in the United Kingdom. An
online supplement (developed for the third edition) is available for the citation of
international legal cases, not covered in the main guide.

4) The Maroonbook
It is a system of legal citation that is intended to be simpler and more straightforward
than the more widely used Bluebook. It was developed at the University of Chicago
and is the citation system for the University of Chicago Law Review. As a simplified
and modernized citation method, it tends to be closer to the Oxford Standard for
Citation of Legal Authorities in its conventions.

Commonly Used Style Guide for Legal Research in India

• ILI (Indian Law Institute)
• [A PDF of the ILI citation style will be shared as study material.]

More Examples of Bibliographic Entries for Books (by a single author)

• Bluebook style:
Robert Stewart, Land Law, (3 ed. Oxford University Press, 2013)
• ILI citation style:
M.P. Jain, Indian Constitutional Law 98 (Kamal Law House, Calcutta, 5th edn., 1998).