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Reference elements

Bibliography

A list of sources at the end of a work that may include material you consulted but never cited.

In Chicago and Turabian the end list is a bibliography, and it can be broader than what the notes cite: works that shaped your thinking belong there even if no footnote points at them. That openness is the difference from a reference list.

In casual use “bibliography” has come to mean any end-of-paper source list, which is why the term shows up in tools and assignments that actually want a reference list or Works Cited. Follow the name your style uses on the page itself.

Bibliographies are sometimes divided by source kind — primary sources, then secondary — which is common in history and rare elsewhere.

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