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Chicago Citation & Referencing Guide

Format of a Bibliography

Format of a Bibliography

All sources you have used in your research and quoted from or referred to in your assignment/dissertation are listed in your bibliography which comes at the end of your written work.

Entries in bibliographies are listed alphabetically by author's or editor's surname. If there is no author or editor, the entry is listed by the title, ignoring any definite or indefinite article (an, a, the) if there is one at the beginning of the title. Each entry/source is listed once.

Titles of books and journals are always in italics. Titles of chapters or journal articles are in double inverted commas.

Bibliographies are divided into sections- Published Sources (books, articles, etc), Unpublished Sources (dissertations, unpublished interviews, etc.) and Web Sources (websites, social media content, etc.).

Hanging indents are sometimes used in bibliographies. This is when the first line of an entry in a bibliography starts at the usual distance from the edge of the page, but then all subsequent lines of text start further in from the edge of the page (but all at the same distance), and so are 'indented'. Please check with your school whether they want you to use hanging indents or not.

Unlike in citations/footnotes, page numbers are not included, unless you are listing a journal article or a chapter from an edited book. This is because your are referring to the whole work, not just one point in that work.