Learn and Generate Bibliographies, Citations, and Works Cited
Creating a bibliography is all about citing the works that you used in your essay to back up your research. However, depending on the type of work that you created or what it’s for, your citations are going to be a bit different.
Citation Formats, Styles and Examples
Generally, most of your writing will fall into the big three writing styles: APA, MLA or CMOS. But, other styles, like the Turabian and Harvard, are also available.
American Psychological Association
One of the most common styles, APA is used for essays or research papers in education, psychology, social sciences, etc. Citing sources will look different depending on the source. A printed book would be sourced in APA like:
Author last name, First initial. (year of publication) Title of work. City, State Publisher: Publisher.
Modern Language Association
If your essay falls into the area of humanities or liberal arts, you might opt for the MLA format for citations. While there are several ways to cite a source, citing a printed book will look like:
Last name, First name, Middle initial. Title of book. Publication place: Publisher, Publication date: Print
Chicago Manual of Style/Turabian
Business and fine arts writers might use a different approach. The CMOS is a professional style that offers a variety of different ways to list your sources in a bibliography. The Turabian is a form of the Chicago style that is designed for essays that will not be published. A print book citation in CMOS will look like:
Last name, First name. Title of book. Publication place: Publisher, publication date.
Harvard Referencing System
The Harvard style is designed for informational texts and can be used for liberal arts or social sciences. Referencing a book looks like:
Last name, First initial. (Year Publication). Title of work. Edition. Place published: Publisher.
Writing is a skill. That’s why it’s important to keep perfecting it. Whether you are new to bibliographies or they have become your old friend, mistakes are easy to make. Learn how to avoid the most common mistakes by checking out a list of the top citation mistakes. 1. Missing References or Citations One of the most common citation mistakes is missing references or citations. First of all...
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You thought you were a citation master until you hit an MLA play citation roadblock. You’ve quickly discovered that you don’t know how to cite a play in MLA 8 correctly. In MLA style, you need to learn how to cite a play that is published, unpublished, live or even part of an anthology. To begin, you’ll need to include the playwright, act, scene and even line numbers, if they are available...
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A good way to guide your reader to the exact definition of a word you’ve used in your essay is to include a dictionary citation. You should keep in mind, however, that reference works, like dictionaries and encyclopedias, are secondary sources. You should use primary sources as much as possible in your essay instead. Setting up dictionary citations for your essay depends on the type of style used...
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As you start writing your paper, you realize you need to include in-text citations in the proper APA format. In-text citations in APA 7 are sometimes called “parenthetical” citations because they are placed inside parentheses within a sentence. You may also place them within a sentence directly. Purpose of In-Text Citations Writing a research paper usually means you’re referencing...
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