Reference List vs Bibliography: Which One Do You Need?

Quick Answer: reference list or bibliography?

Write the list your style names and put in it what that style allows. If the brief says nothing more, APA, MLA, Chicago author-date, Harvard and Vancouver all expect a cited-only list; only Chicago notes-bibliography and some Harvard and OSCOLA briefs expect a bibliography that may include works you read but did not cite. Never pad a cited-only list with background reading, and never leave a cited work out of a bibliography.

Definitions

Reference list

A reference list is the set of full entries for every source you cited in the text, and nothing else. The relationship is one to one: each in-text citation matches one entry, and each entry is cited at least once. Because it exists to let readers follow your citations, it is ordered so that a citation can find its entry, which means alphabetically by author in author-date and author-page styles and numerically in numeric styles. APA calls this list References, Chicago author-date calls it References or Works Cited, and Harvard sheets call it Reference list or References.

Bibliography

A bibliography is a list of the works relevant to your piece of writing: everything you cited, plus works you read for background, works you consulted and rejected, or works a reader might want next. It is always alphabetical. In Chicago notes-bibliography style the bibliography is the standard end list and the manual allows it to include works that were not cited in the notes; in Harvard, Cite Them Right defines a bibliography as a list of everything you read, cited or not, and treats it as a separate document from the reference list. Because bibliography also names the discipline of describing books, and the general word for any list of sources, briefs sometimes use it loosely to mean a reference list; when the style is APA or MLA, assume the loose meaning.

Works Cited

Works Cited is MLA's name for a reference list. The heading is literal: only works cited in the text belong there. The MLA Handbook allows a list that also includes works you consulted but did not cite, headed Works Consulted, and it allows a list of further reading under a heading such as Selected Bibliography when an instructor asks for one. Chicago also accepts Works Cited as a heading for a cited-only list in either of its systems.

Annotated bibliography

An annotated bibliography is a bibliography in which each entry is followed by a short paragraph summarising and evaluating the work. It is usually set as an assignment in its own right rather than attached to an essay, and its entries follow the ordinary reference format of the style, with the annotation indented beneath. Despite the name, it can be cited-only or consulted-only, depending on the brief. How to write an annotated bibliography covers the annotations; the annotated bibliography maker formats the entries.

Which style requires which

APA 7: a reference list, never a bibliography

The Publication Manual draws the line in its first paragraph on reference lists (§9.1): a reference list cites works that specifically support the ideas, claims and data in the paper, while a bibliography cites works for background or further reading. APA papers use the reference list. Every work in it must be cited in the text, and every citation must lead to an entry, with the exceptions the manual names: personal communications, which are cited in the text only, and general mentions of a whole website or software that do not need an entry. The heading is References, bold and centred, on a new page. The APA reference list guidance and the elements of an entry are the official sources.

MLA 9: Works Cited

MLA's list is headed Works Cited, centred without bold or underlining, and contains the works you cited. If you also want to show background reading, the handbook's answer is a differently headed list, Works Consulted, rather than a longer Works Cited. Entries are built from the core elements — author, title of source, title of container, other contributors, version, number, publisher, publication date, location — and are ordered alphabetically by whatever fills the first slot.

Chicago 18: bibliography with notes, reference list with author-date

Chicago has two systems and they answer this question differently. In notes-bibliography style the notes do the citing and the Bibliography lists sources alphabetically; the Manual lets a bibliography include works that were consulted but not cited in the notes, and it suggests headings such as Selected Bibliography or Works Cited when you want to signal a narrower list. In author-date style the end list is a References (or Works Cited) list of every source cited in the parenthetical citations, and only those. The notes-bibliography guide and author-date guide show the same sources in each. Turabian, the student version of Chicago, follows the same split.

Harvard: reference list, plus a bibliography when asked

Cite Them Right, the version of Harvard most UK universities teach, separates the two: the reference list holds the works cited in the text, and a bibliography is a list of everything you read, including works not cited. Most assignments want only the reference list. Some briefs ask for a bibliography instead, meaning a full list of reading; a few ask for both, in which case the bibliography comes after the reference list and repeats nothing from it, or lists only the uncited works, depending on your sheet. University sheets vary here more than anywhere else in Harvard, so read yours; the Harvard referencing guide covers how to identify which variant you have.

OSCOLA: tables of authorities and a bibliography

OSCOLA, the UK law style, cites everything in footnotes, so a short essay often needs no end list at all. Longer work, including dissertations, ends with tables of the primary sources cited — a table of cases, in alphabetical order, and a table of legislation, with statutes and statutory instruments listed by title — followed by a bibliography of the secondary sources: books, articles, reports and websites, alphabetical by author's surname with the surname written before the initial. The law citation guide and the OSCOLA generator cover the footnote forms.

Formatting each list

Order

Alphabetise by the first author's surname, letter by letter, ignoring spaces and punctuation: Delacroix before De la Rue, Macmillan before McAllister in most styles because a comes before c. An organisation is filed under the first significant word of its name, not under The. A work with no author is filed by its title, ignoring A, An and The. For several works by one author, APA and Harvard order by year, oldest first, then add letters to the year for the same year; MLA orders by title and replaces the repeated name with three hyphens; Chicago 18 repeats the name and orders by title. The bibliography alphabetiser applies these rules to a pasted list.

Hanging indent

A hanging indent sets the first line of each entry at the margin and indents every following line, so the author's surname stands out for scanning. APA, MLA and Chicago all require it, at half an inch or 1.27 cm. Harvard sheets differ: Cite Them Right does not require one, most UK universities leave the list flush left with a blank line between entries, and many Australian sheets ask for the indent. Numbered lists in Vancouver and IEEE use the number, not an indent, to separate entries. Apply the indent with the paragraph settings in Word or Google Docs, never with spaces or tabs; the hanging indent formatter prepares a list for pasting.

Spacing and heading

The same reading as a reference list and as a bibliography

Suppose an essay cites a book, a journal article and a report, and the writer also read a second book that shaped the argument without being cited. The APA reference list has three entries; the Chicago bibliography for the same essay may have four.

Adeyemi and Roux appear in the Chicago bibliography although no note cites them, because the writer consulted the book and the brief allowed a full bibliography. In the APA list they would be an error. The same is true of the Harvard reference list; in Harvard they would go into a separate bibliography if one was requested. Notice also that Chicago 18, like Cite Them Right 13 and APA 7, no longer requires a place of publication for books.

When an assignment asks for both

Some Harvard, Chicago and law briefs ask for a reference list and a bibliography. The sensible reading is: reference list for the works you cited, bibliography for the wider reading. Two conventions exist for the overlap, and your sheet decides which. Under the first, the bibliography lists everything you read, so every reference list entry is repeated in it. Under the second, the bibliography lists only the works not in the reference list, sometimes under a heading such as Bibliography (works consulted) or Further reading. If the sheet is silent, choose the second, say so in one line under the heading, and keep the format of every entry identical to the reference list.

1. Finish the text first, then build the reference list from the citations. Every citation gets an entry; nothing else does.
2. Read the brief again for the words bibliography, works consulted or further reading. If none appears, stop: you need only the reference list.
3. If a bibliography is required, list the works you read that are not cited, in the same style and order as the reference list.
4. Decide, from the sheet or your tutor, whether the bibliography repeats the cited works or excludes them, and head it so the reader knows which.
5. Put the reference list first and the bibliography after it, each starting on a new page, each alphabetical, each in the same format.
6. Check that no work appears in the bibliography under a different form from the reference list: same spelling of the author, same year, same edition.

Reference list

Bhattacharya, S. and Lindqvist, M. (2024) 'Tidal energy and estuary ecology: a ten-year review', *Journal of Coastal Policy*, 18(2), pp. 114–132. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5555/jcp.2024.0114
Marlowe, J. (2023) *Coastal towns after tourism: regeneration in the North East*. 2nd edn. Halcyon Press.
Northern Housing Federation (2024) *Damp and mould in social housing: a national survey*. Available at: https://www.northernhousing.org.uk/reports/damp-mould-2024 (Accessed: 3 March 2026).

Bibliography (works consulted but not cited)

Adeyemi, F. and Roux, C. (2021) *Rural broadband and the digital divide*. Kestrel Academic.
Okonkwo, L. (ed.) (2022) *Learning in the open: field education across disciplines*. Sable University Press.

Common mistakes

• Heading an APA or MLA list Bibliography. The headings are References and Works Cited and markers notice.
• Adding unread or uncited works to a reference list to make it look longer. In APA, MLA, Harvard and Chicago author-date this is an error, and in most marking schemes it costs marks.
• Leaving a cited work out of a bibliography because "it is only for extra reading". A bibliography always contains every cited work.
• Splitting a reference list by source type: books, then articles, then websites. Every style listed here uses one alphabetical (or numbered) sequence; only OSCOLA separates cases and legislation from secondary sources.
• Numbering an alphabetical list. Numbers belong to Vancouver and IEEE, where the order is order of citation.
• Putting personal communications, such as an email from a lecturer, in an APA reference list. They are cited in the text only.
• Using a different format in the bibliography from the reference list, for example spaced initials in one and unspaced in the other.
• Forgetting that a Works Consulted list in MLA and a full bibliography in Chicago still need the cited works in them; they are supersets, not alternatives.

Related guides and official manuals

• How to write a bibliography in APA, MLA and Chicago
• How to write an annotated bibliography
• Referencing vs citing
• Harvard referencing: the complete guide
• Law citation guide (OSCOLA and AGLC)
• Which citation style should I use?
• Citing the same source multiple times
• APA Style: reference list guidance
• MLA Style Center: Works Cited, a quick guide
• Chicago Notes-Bibliography citation guide
• Chicago Author-Date citation guide
• Cite Them Right Online