Write your bibliography

A bibliography is a list of the resources you used to write your essay. There are lots of different methods of writing bibliographies, but most secondary schools and universities use the ‘Author-date' (Harvard) system.

When using this system, you need to include slightly different information for different types of resources:

Books

• author's name – surname followed by first initial
  
  
• year of publication of the edition you're using
  
  
• title, in italics
  
  
• publisher
  
  
• place of publication, usually a city.

Magazines, newspapers & journals

• author's name – surname followed by first initial, if there's a by-line
  
  
• year of publication
  
  
• title of the article in single quote marks [‘...']
  
  
• name of the publication, in italics
  
  
• specific date, including volume number if applicable
  
  
• page number.

Websites

• name of the organisation or person who made the site
  
  
• name of the site
  
  
• date you looked at the site
  
  
• URL, including http://www...

The main thing to remember about bibliographies and referencing is to be consistent. Check whether your teacher has a preferred system – if not, pick one and stick to it.