How to Write a Bibliography

Quick Answer: How to Write a Bibliography

Start the list on a new page after the text (and after endnotes, if you used them). Give it the title your style names. Apply a 0.5-inch hanging indent to every entry. Alphabetize by the first element — usually the first author's last name — unless you are in a numbered style such as Vancouver or IEEE. Then match every in-text citation to one line. Do not invent sources to pad the list, and do not add titles you only read unless the assignment asked for a consulted bibliography.

Chicago states the two systems on the Quick Guide in wording this page follows. Opened 18 September 2026.

This Page Versus Annotated Lists and Naming Guides

Searchers type "how to write a bibliography" for three different jobs. This URL is the formatting job: the heading, the hanging indent, the order, and what may sit on the page. The reference-list versus bibliography page is the naming job — which product APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and OSCOLA actually want. The annotated bibliography page is the paragraph-after-each-entry assignment (APA 7 §9.51, MLA 9 §5.132, CMOS 18 §13.65). Do not paste this page's hanging-indent checklist into an annotation assignment, and do not put Bibliography on an APA paper because a classmate used that word.

Which List Title Your Style Actually Uses

Students lose marks for putting "Bibliography" on an APA paper or "References" on an MLA paper. The words are not interchangeable. Use the official heading, centered at the top of the new page. APA bolds References. MLA does not bold Works Cited. Chicago centers Bibliography or References without bold unless your instructor's template says otherwise.

That second sentence is the current official APA rule, not a classroom shortcut. Older handouts that insist APA must stay plural on a one-item list are behind the 23 February 2022 guide. MLA still requires the singular Work Cited for one entry — the MLA Style Center answer from 24 February 2016, and the current Formatting a Research Paper PDF, both say so. A later Style Center note on citing the ninth-edition handbook (12 January 2022) even uses Work Cited as the sample heading.

If the assignment says "include everything you read," you are being asked for a works-consulted or selected bibliography, not a standard APA or MLA cited-only list. Chicago Notes-Bibliography can carry extra consulted titles. APA and MLA do not, unless the instructor renames the page. CMOS 18 §13.65 names the annotated bibliography as one bibliography type; that assignment lives on the other page.

Page Setup Shared Across APA, MLA, and Chicago

The three author-name styles agree on the scaffolding even when punctuation differs. Get this layer right before you fuss over a comma.

New page, continued numbering

Begin the list on its own page after the last paragraph. If you used MLA or Chicago endnotes, the list comes after those notes. Keep the same running head and page numbers. One-inch margins stay in place. Do not restart numbering at 1. APA's Student Paper Checklist (Beginner’s Version) (12 September 2023) puts the pages in this order: title page, text, references.

Hanging indent

The first line of each entry is flush left. Every following line of that entry indents 0.5 inch (1.27 cm). Apply it with the paragraph settings, not the Tab key. Official APA and MLA wording is almost the same sentence.

The first sentence is the APA Creating-list guide. The second is the MLA Style Center Formatting a Research Paper PDF. CMOS 2.28 describes the same hanging shape for bibliographies.

• Microsoft Word: Home → Paragraph → Special → Hanging.
• Google Docs: Format → Align & indent → Indentation options → Special → Hanging.
• Select the whole list first. Formatting entries one at a time is how a single flush-left DOI line sneaks through.

Spacing

• APA 7: Double-space the whole list, inside entries and between them. The Creating-list guide is explicit: do not add extra lines between references.
• MLA 9: Double-space the heading, the entries, and the space between them. The Formatting PDF says to double-space the entire list.
• Chicago 18: Student papers often single-space inside an entry and put a blank line between entries. Many instructors still want the list double-spaced throughout. Follow the syllabus when it conflicts with house style. Turabian is the student handbook built on Chicago; it uses the same two list titles.

Alphabetize Letter by Letter

Sort on the first element the reader can see. That is usually a personal surname, a group name, or a title. Ignore initial A, An, and The when the first element is a title. Treat Mac and Mc as spelled; do not force them into one Mac pile. A corporate author such as World Health Organization files under W — see the official APA group-author line below.

Same author, more than one work

The three styles part company here. APA repeats the name and sorts by year. MLA still allows three hyphens for an identical author string. Chicago 18 dropped the 3-em dash.

Southern New Hampshire University reprints CMOS 13.72 with Tony Judt's two real books as the classroom pair. Titles by the same author are listed alphabetically. An initial A, An, or The in a title is ignored when you sort those titles, which is why A Grand Illusion? files under G and precedes Reappraisals.

• APA 7: Repeat the name. Sort by year, earliest first. Two works in the same year become 2019a and 2019b, and those letters appear in the in-text citations too. See same author, same year.
• MLA 9: You may replace a repeated identical author string with three hyphens (---) after the first full entry, then sort those titles alphabetically. The hyphens stand only for names that match the previous line exactly.
• Chicago 18: Repeat the author's name on every line. A 3-em dash copied from a CMOS 17 paper or from Zotero is now the wrong mark.

No author, no date, too many names

Move the title into the author slot when no person or group is responsible, then alphabetize by that title. APA writes (n.d.) when the date is missing and adds a retrieval date only when the page is designed to change and is not archived — the official Worldometer line below is that case. MLA omits a date it does not have rather than inventing one. Chicago may use n.d. or an access date for undated web content. Author-count caps are not the same across styles — see how to cite multiple authors for the in-text half of the rule.

The CMOS 17 habit of listing ten names, or seven plus et al., is outdated. Do not copy it into an 18th-edition paper. The Quick Guide's own seven-author sample is the Snyder PLOS ONE article below.

APA 7 References

APA calls the list a reference list, not a bibliography. The official Creating an APA Style Reference List guide (last updated 23 February 2022) is the free rule sheet for the page itself. Chapter 9 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed., 2020) is the full set. Worked lines on this page come from the Common Reference Examples PDF, last updated 3 March 2026.

A reference has four elements — author, date, title, source — as the APA Style basic-principles page lays out.

Personal emails, private chats, and unrecorded interviews stay in the text only; they never get a reference line. The Creating-list guide names Section 8.9 as that exception. See how to cite an interview in APA and personal communications for the split.

Official APA 7 examples

These six lines are the 3 March 2026 Common Reference Examples PDF, not invented classroom citations. They replace the older handbook set (Sapolsky, Dillard, Grady, Bologna) that this page used before the 2026 instructional-aid refresh. Pair each one with an in-text citation that uses the same opening name and year.

Notice what the examples refuse to do. The Levenson book has no place of publication. The Zeleke chapter keeps the editors, edition-less book title, and page range because APA still wants that chapter location. The Niepel article keeps the issue number, uses an en dash in the page range, and ends with a DOI as a URL — no period after the DOI. The Volpe line italicizes the site name, not the article title, and keeps the month and day. The WHO report omits a publisher that would only repeat the group author. Worldometer is the rare retrieval-date case: the page is designed to change and is not archived. Sentence-case the article or webpage title; italicize the journal name and volume, or the standalone book or report title.

APA failure modes on the reference page

• Calling the page Bibliography or Works Cited. The official guide names those two headings as the ones not to use.
• Listing a work you only mentioned as a website name. A passing mention of CNN or JSTOR is not a citation and does not earn a reference.
• Putting a personal communication on the list. If the reader cannot retrieve it, APA keeps it in the sentence.
• Adding background reading you never cited. The Creating-list guide forbids it.
• Dropping the issue number. APA 7 includes the issue when the journal has one.
• Ending a DOI with a period. The period can break the link. The DOI is the last character of the entry.
• Using a retrieval date except when the page is designed to change and is not archived.
• Using a copyright-footer year or a last-reviewed stamp as the publication date. The Creating-list guide says to use last publication or last update.
• Alphabetizing by the title when a group author is sitting in the author slot.

MLA 9 Works Cited

MLA calls the list Works Cited. The MLA Style Center citations-by-format page states the construction rule this page uses. Opened 18 September 2026.

Center the heading Works Cited an inch from the top. Do not italicize it, bold it, or put it in quotation marks. If the list contains one source, the heading is Work Cited. Double-space everything. Hanging indent every entry. The list usually follows endnotes. Handbook sections 5.123–5.130 cover order and formatting.

Official MLA 9 examples

These four lines are the Style Center's own samples on the citations-by-format page, still live on 18 September 2026. They replaced the invented Smith/Jones journal article and Brown climate book that once sat on this page.

Beowulf starts with the title because there is no author to invert, so it alphabetizes under B. Goldman's article title is in quotation marks; the journal is italic. MLA 9 includes the season (spring) when the issue uses one, names the database, and can omit https:// on a DOI-less URL. Do not upgrade that JSTOR handle to a made-up DOI. Sánchez Prado files under S, and the label editor is part of the author element, not a second container.

MLA failure modes on the Works Cited page

• Calling the page Bibliography or References. Those headings belong to Chicago or APA.
• Numbering the entries. MLA is not Vancouver.
• Putting a year in the parenthetical citation unless two listings would otherwise look identical.
• Inventing a container. Cite the version you actually read. A JSTOR PDF and a bound Georgia Review are different sources.
• Forgetting that one entry changes the heading to Work Cited.
• Bolding or italicizing the heading. Works Cited is plain, centered text.

Chicago 18 Bibliography or Reference List

Chicago is one manual with two end lists. Humanities courses usually want Notes-Bibliography: numbered notes plus a bibliography. Social-science courses often want Author-Date: parenthetical citations plus References. Turabian uses the same two systems for student papers. Do not mix a footnote with an author-date parenthesis in one paper.

The first two sentences are What’s New in the 18th Edition for §§14.30 and 14.8. The next two are the live Quick Guide restatements, opened 18 September 2026. Those two CMOS 18 cuts are the marks students still copy from older papers. A current book line ends at the publisher and year. A current chapter line names the essay, the book, the editors, the publisher, and the year — and stops. New York or Oxford in the publication slot is a 17th-edition leftover unless you are citing a book published before 1900 that has no publisher (CMOS 14.31). Chapter pages still belong in the note when you quote a passage.

Official Chicago 18 examples

Charles Yu, Binder and Kidder, Doyle, Dittmar and Schemske, and Snyder are the Quick Guide's own samples, still live on 18 September 2026. The notes are shorter and use normal name order; the bibliography inverts the first author and drops parentheses around the publication data. Binder before Yu is the Quick Guide showing alphabetical order, not a second invented book.

Author-Date moves the year to sit after the author and uses a space, not a comma, between volume and issue: 202 (4) rather than 202, no. 4. The Quick Guide requires every author-date in-text citation to match a reference-list line. Notes-Bibliography is the system that can, when the assignment asks, add consulted titles you never footnoted. Snyder's article ID e0318239 stands in for a page range (CMOS 14.71).

What never belongs on a Chicago list

The Quick Guide's personal-communication note is the same rule APA uses, with Chicago's wording. Opened 18 September 2026.

Chicago failure modes on the end list

• Keeping a city of publication on a current book. CMOS 18 dropped it.
• Keeping a chapter page range on a current bibliography line. CMOS 14.8 dropped it.
• Using a 3-em dash for the second work by the same author. Repeat the name.
• Listing ten authors. The cap is now six, then three plus et al.
• Copying note punctuation into the bibliography. Notes use parentheses around publication data and commas; bibliography entries use periods.
• Building an Author-Date list of works you only read. That list is cited-only.

Numbered Lists Are a Different Job

Vancouver, AMA 11th edition, and IEEE number the reference list in the order sources first appear, not A-to-Z. Those papers still use a hanging indent or a flush number-plus-tab pattern, but alphabetizing them is a mistake. The IEEE Reference Style Guide for Authors (V 3.28.2025) puts each number flush left in square brackets and hanging out beyond the body of the reference; there must be only one work per number. If your program uses a numbered style, leave this page and use the medical citation guide or IEEE vs APA.

Build the List While You Research

1. Capture the copy you opened. Author, date, title, container, pages, DOI or URL, and database name if that is how you reached it.
2. Name the style once. Which citation style if the syllabus is vague; then stay in that system.
3. Write the end-list line when you first cite the source, not the night before submission.
4. Keep notes out of share links if you later export an annotated file. Annotations are a separate product.
5. Alphabetize or number only after the last citation is in.
6. Proof the pairing. Every parenthesis or note number has a line; every line has a citation, unless you are expressly writing a consulted bibliography.

A generator or a manager such as Zotero is a draft, not a finished list. Import BibTeX or RIS when you already have records, and export to Word or Google Docs when you need the hanging indent applied in the file you will submit. Then read each line against the official examples on this page.

Checklist Before You Submit

Related Guides

• How to Write an Annotated Bibliography
• Reference List vs Bibliography
• Which Citation Style Should I Use?
• APA vs MLA
• MLA vs Chicago
• How to Cite Multiple Authors
• Cite a Source with No Author
• Cite a Source with No Date
• Export a Bibliography to Word or Google Docs
• How to Avoid Plagiarism