Nerdify Reviews 6 Useful Tips on How to Prepare a Bibliography for Your Project
Bibliographies are an important part of any research paper or monograph. Not only does it provide an easy way for reviewers to research sources, but it can also provide others with further material to read on their own. That said, actually making them can be rather tedious. Still, they need to be done, and since that is the case, they should be done right. For this reason, the Nerdify Reviews team has collected 6 tips on how to prepare a bibliography for your project.
1. Know your format
Before making a bibliography, it’s important to know in what format it is needed. The most common format is MLA, but APA and Chicago’s styles are also very common. The nuances between styles are subtle in most cases, but they do matter. Historians will mostly use the Chicago style, literary fields will use MLA, and psychology will use APA. Other formats do exist, and the professor will specify the needed format for writing, which will include bibliography formatting. If you need assistance our Nerds can help find the right formatting method.
2. Keep track of sources
This one might seem obvious, but it is an important, and admittedly somewhat tedious, part of the process. Many formats require citations with the work anyway, so keeping track of all the cited references isn’t as hard as it might seem at first. To help ensure all the sources are obtained for the future, once the initial citation is performed, copy down the relevant information for the bibliography, which will vary depending on the citation format. In some cases, there will be little difference between a citation and the bibliography, which can help make final formatting much easier.
3. Verify sources
This actually needs to be done throughout the project. Not all sources are created equal, so make sure to review them and weed out those that aren’t suitable for the project. The source might use outdated information, have a bias of some sort, or just be poorly written and cited itself. Not wanting to repeat such a mistake, make sure to avoid such poor sources to ensure a quality project, which will lead to a strong bibliography.
It’s very important not to put this off until the end of the project, because removing inaccurate cited material can cause serious issues with the overall project. It will also make finishing the bibliography even more aggravating. Review sources to make sure they are accurate.
4. Alphabetize
When it comes time to start actually making the bibliography, it’s important to remember that a bibliography needs to be in alphabetical format. Since all the cited sources were probably grabbed and written down as needed, rather than in any semblance of order, this is usually the most tedious part. It needs to be done, though, because an improperly alphabetized bibliography is an incorrect one. Academic blogs like Edu services reviews can offer insight into the proper alphabetical format, though in most cases it’s pretty self-explanatory and may depend on the citation format.
5. Summarize if needed
Sometimes a bibliography is a little more involved. They are called annotated bibliographies and require a brief description of the referenced material. These descriptions are usually only a sentence or two, and, if needed, will take some time. These sorts of bibliographies emphasize how important it is to make sure that the sources cited are reliable, topical, and as up-to-date as possible.
Not every bibliography needs to be annotated, but, if it does need to be, make sure to have the time to write concise and accurate reviews to ensure the overall bibliography doesn’t suffer.
6. Review and revise
With all that tedious formatting, copying, pasting, and whatnot, it’s possible that a reference might be missed, or that the punctuation could be off on some of the citations. While this might seem trivial, proper formatting is important when writing serious research materials. whether or not someone else may cite it in the future, it’s good practice to stay in proper formatting form.
So, look over the bibliography and make sure that everything is in order. Double-check the reference format and ensure that the sources are in alphabetical order. Once all that’s over and done with, the bibliography should be complete, and, as that’s usually the last part of a paper completed, the work itself is also done!
In Conclusion
Bibliographies are an afterthought a lot of the time. That means there might not be enough time to properly review and format it before a project’s due date. Nerdify Reviews experts state that knowing the right citation format, reviewing and tracking sources as they are referenced, and trying to keep everything in order while working on the project, will help ensure an accurate bibliography completed in a timely manner.
There’re lots of comments on Nerdify Reddit reviews that are filled with horror stories of improperly formatted bibliographies or ones that referenced terrible sources. Don’t repeat those mistakes. Make use of modern technology and materials to ensure that the bibliography is properly formatted and accurate.
