BIBLIOGRAPHY WRITING: APA & MLA
A bibliography is a list of all of the sources a researcher has used in the
process of research. In general, a bibliography should include:
the authors' names
the titles of the works
the names and locations of the companies that published the copies
of the sources
the dates the copies were published
the page numbers of sources
Referencing Styles
To make the reference list and bibliography consistent and easy to read,
there are specific styles that guide a researcher how to set them out - these
are called citation styles. The following are the most popular:
APA. APA is an author/date based style. This means emphasis is
placed on the author and the date of a piece of work.
MLA. MLA is most often applied by the arts and humanities,
particularly in the USA. It is the most used of all of the citation styles.
The two styles vary in a number of ways, including punctuation,
capitalization, and placement of the date. Unlike APA Style, MLA Style
includes the format of the source—either “Print” or “Web”, and it often
requires writers to abbreviate publisher names.
MLA
Gordin, Michael D. The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky
and the Birth of the Modern Fringe. Chicago: U Chicago P, 2012. Print.
APA
Gordin, M. D. (2012). The pseudoscience wars: Immanuel Velikovsky
and the birth of the modern fringe. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
APA-formatted papers include a separate page at the end of the paper
entitled "References," and MLA-formatted papers include a page entitled
"Works Cited." Both list the sources used in the paper alphabetized by the
last name of the author and are double spaced.
In an APA-formatted paper, if there are two works by the same author, the
entries are listed in chronological order from the earliest work. In an MLA-
formatted paper, the entries are listed alphabetically by title, and three
hyphens are used in place of the author's name after the first entry.
In an MLA-formatted works cited page, the second line and subsequent
lines for each source are indented five spaces. An APA source is indented
one-half inch from the margin after the first line.