By: Steve Patterson
Submitted: 2010-10-19 08:15:16 | Word Count: 556
Academia today is taking a dramatic turn to focusing on the eradication of plagiarism. To help combat this professors and teachers alike are putting a greater focus on writing proper bibliographies and addressing credit to those academics who write books and journal articles. For historians, crafting a good bibliography is essential to getting a good grade and avoiding plagiarism.
What's the Difference Between Works Cited and a Bibliography
The first thing to consider before beginning a bibliography is what needs to be included in the bibliography. In short, everything needs to be put into a bibliography. A professor will often ask for a works cited page and a bibliography to be added at the end of a paper. The difference between the two is that a works cited page lists only the sources used in the essay, where a bibliography lists everything used to formulate the essay's thesis, not just for references.
A bibliography is important in listing anything that was read to create the paper. Very often a source is not used because it overlaps with another source and is discarded. The more sources the better. A bibliography should display a historian’s ability to research properly. A professor wants to know how a student developed their thesis and a bibliography does this.
[ advertisement ]
How to Organize Sources Properly in a Bibliography
The proper organization of a bibliography is of the utmost importance. The first part of organizing a bibliography is using the proper citation style. For history the standard citation style is the University of Chicago style. For monograph books the citation should look like this:
Lawrence, C.H. The English Church and the Papacy in the Middle Ages (New York: Fordham University Press, 1965)
In university and college it is important to use academic journal articles in association with traditional monographs. Proper citation for journal articles look like this:
Denton, J.H. “Pope Clement V’s Early Career as a Royal Clerk.” The English Historical Review, Vol. 83, no. 327 (Apr., 1968), p. 303-314.
For journal articles it is important to include the volume, issue, and page numbers; without them the citation would be nearly useless. Besides proper citations and knowing the difference between monographs and journal articles the next major tip for creating a bibliography is separating primary sources and secondary sources.
The Difference Between Primary and Secondary Sources
Separating primary and secondary sources under different subheadings is important in a bibliography in order to show the essay marker that primary sources were used. For medieval history primary sources can be difficult to find and more often than not are found either online, such as with the Internet Medieval Sourcebook, or in existing collections of documents like medieval chronicles. Differentiating between the two is important to any bibliography.
Primary sources can be papal bulls, diaries, legal transcripts, or even a book written during the time period, such as The Divine Comedy. Secondary sources are academic works such as books and journal articles with scholarly merit. This does not include books written by journalists with zero accreditation. It must be stressed that only academic works should be used, unless otherwise authorized by a professor. Listing them in the bibliography separately is important is displaying the research done and showing the importance of the primary documents.
For further help with academic writing please consult this article on common errors found in history essays.
