Home > Library > Creating a Bibliography

Cite your sources!

When you write a research paper or report you have to cite the sources you used.

This is also called a bibliography.

A bibliography is an important part of a research paper. It gives proper recognition to the authors or creators who originally researched and published the information you are using.

When you hand in a research project, you should hand in a list of all the materials you used; books, magazines, encyclopedias, newspapers, and online sources.

When ready to type in your bibliography in MS Word remember these general guidelines:

• List the entries in alphabetical order by author’s last name.
• If the author is not given, use the first important word in the title, excluding “a”, “an” and “the”.
• Put all entries in a single list under the title “Works Cited” at the end of the report.
• Put a period at the end of each entry.
• Double space between each new listing
• Indent all lines in each entry, except for the first line
• Do not number the list

You can use Landmark’s Citation Machine to help you set up the citations in proper format.

You also can go online with the Oregon School Library Information System to find excellent resources on the Research Process, Gathering and Organizing Information, and Citing Sources.