| |
How
to Compile a Bibliography
What is a Bibliography?
A bibliography is a listing of books, articles and other sources used
in finding information for your term paper ("Hausarbeit"), M.A.
thesis or any other type of serious academic writing project. The purpose
of a bibliography is
to allow the reader to check your sources of information and to provide
a list of sources for further study of the topic. These sources could
be books, magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias, pamphlets, videos, audiotapes,
interviews, CD-ROMS or internet resources such as world wide web sites.
Form
and Content
The bibliographic form should be correct and consistent.
- Correct
and consistent: In your work for my classes you are required to follow
the guidelines specified as MLA
style. This style should be used throughout the bibliography.
Quality,
quantity and variety are important.
- Quality
– a good bibliography should include the most important standard
works on the topic and other works which have a clear connection to
the given topic.
- Quantity
– a good bibliography will include the best known publications
on the topic, those that are repeatedly mentioned in bibliographies
at the end of articles, essays and in books. The number of titles listed
should be large enough to make the bibliography a useful research tool.
- Variety
– a good bibliography will include books and articles, and may
include Internet resources. Depending on your topic, you might also
want to include government documents, maps, statistics or references
to interviews that you have conducted. Again, depending on your topic,
you might want to include both primary (diaries, letters, first-hand
accounts, public opinion surveys, laboratory studies) and secondary
(published interpretations of primary materials).
The
Steps to Compiling a Good Bibliography
1. Find
Relevant Materials
Once you
begin research on a given topic, check the following sources for relevant
materials:
- Library
Catalogs
- MLA
Online Bibliography
Accessible only from within the Otto-von-Guericke-Universität
network
- Material
provided by LRC
(Literature Resource Center, Gale)
Accessible only from within the Otto-von-Guericke-Universität
network
- Bibliographies
(book length lists of articles and books on a subject)
- Article
indexes
- for
journal or magazine articles on your topic
- different
indexes cover different subjects
- remember
that not every article you find in the article index is available
in this library
- check
the library catalogue to see which magazines and journals UB Magdeburg
owns
- Encyclopedias
- for
a concise overview of your topic check the end of the article for
a bibliography
- Books
that deal with a special topic will usually have a list of works cited
at the back of the volume
- Click
here to go to a page with pre-selected online resources
2. Apply
the Required Bibliographic Style
It is no
doubt true that there is more than one way to write up a bibliography.
In my classes, however, I require you to use MLA
style.
3. Overall
Format
Make sure
your selected bibliography has all the required header information (name
of compiler, date, subject, list of sources used to compile your bibliography).
Examples
of selected bibliographies compiled by Magdeburg students:
|
|