bibliography is defined as

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• bibliography

a complete or selective list of works compiled upon some common principle, as authorship, subject, place of publication, or printer.

a list of source materials that are used or consulted in the preparation of a work or that are referred to in the text.

a branch of library science dealing with the history, physical description, comparison, and classification of books and other works.

Origin of bibliography

Other words from bibliography.

• bib·li·o·graph·ic [bib-lee- uh - graf -ik], /ˌbɪb li əˈgræf ɪk/, bib·li·o·graph·i·cal, adjective
• bib·li·o·graph·i·cal·ly, adverb
• min·i·bib·li·og·ra·phy, noun, plural min·i·bib·li·og·ra·phies.

Words Nearby bibliography

• bibliograph
• bibliographer
• bibliographic control
• bibliographic utility
• biblioklept
• bibliolatry
• bibliomancy
• bibliomania

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use bibliography in a sentence

He’s toyed with Collatz for about fifty years and become keeper of the knowledge, compiling annotated bibliographies and editing a book on the subject, “The Ultimate Challenge.”

Some readers might prefer more background science for each question — for a book that aims to crush pseudoscience, a bibliography or at least footnotes would have been useful.

Kalb makes the disclaimer in his preface that “memoirs, by definition, are not works of history — no footnotes, no bibliography .”

Otlet began modestly in the 1890s, creating a bibliography of sociological literature.

Lop off the endnotes and bibliography , and The Measure of Manhattan is barely 300 pages.

Tyler does not provide us with a bibliography , although his extensive notes include many books on Israel and its neighbors.

For full bibliography (to 1904) see Ulysse Chevalier, Rpertoire des sources hist.

Punctuation has been normalized for the stage directions and the play listings in the bibliography .

Within six months, if you're not sandbagged or jailed on fake libel suits, you'll have a unique bibliography of swindles.

There is a very inadequate bibliography in the Introduction.

His ample bibliography leaves no point necessary for elucidation untouched.

British Dictionary definitions for bibliography

/ ( ˌbɪblɪˈɒɡrəfɪ ) /

a list of books or other material on a subject

a list of sources used in the preparation of a book, thesis, etc

a list of the works of a particular author or publisher

the study of the history, classification, etc, of literary material

a work on this subject

Derived forms of bibliography

• bibliographer , noun
• bibliographic ( ˌbɪblɪəʊˈɡræfɪk ) or bibliographical , adjective
• bibliographically , adverb

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for bibliography

A list of the written sources of information on a subject. Bibliographies generally appear as a list at the end of a book or article. They may show what works the author used in writing the article or book, or they may list works that a reader might find useful.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Online Guide to Writing and Research

Academic integrity and documentation, explore more of umgc.

• Online Guide to Writing

Types of Documentation

Bibliographies and Source Lists

What is a bibliography.

A bibliography is a list of books and other source material that you have used in preparing a research paper. Sometimes these lists will include works that you consulted but did not cite specifically in your assignment. Consult the style guide required for your assignment to determine the specific title of your bibliography page as well as how to cite each source type. Bibliographies are usually placed at the end of your research paper.

What is an annotated bibliography?

A special kind of bibliography, the annotated bibliography, is often used to direct your readers to other books and resources on your topic. An instructor may ask you to prepare an annotated bibliography to help you narrow down a topic for your research assignment. Such bibliographies offer a few lines of information, typically 150-300 words, summarizing the content of the resource after the bibliographic entry.   

Example of Annotated Bibliographic Entry in MLA Style

Waddell, Marie L., Robert M. Esch, and Roberta R. Walker. The Art of Styling         Sentences: 20 Patterns for Success. 3rd ed. New York: Barron’s, 1993.         A comprehensive look at 20 sentence patterns and their variations to         teach students how to write effective sentences by imitating good style.

Mailing Address: 3501 University Blvd. East, Adelphi, MD 20783 This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License . © 2022 UMGC. All links to external sites were verified at the time of publication. UMGC is not responsible for the validity or integrity of information located at external sites.

Table of Contents: Online Guide to Writing

Chapter 1: College Writing

How Does College Writing Differ from Workplace Writing?

What Is College Writing?

Why So Much Emphasis on Writing?

Chapter 2: The Writing Process

Doing Exploratory Research

Getting from Notes to Your Draft

Introduction

Prewriting - Techniques to Get Started - Mining Your Intuition

Prewriting: Targeting Your Audience

Prewriting: Techniques to Get Started

Prewriting: Understanding Your Assignment

Rewriting: Being Your Own Critic

Rewriting: Creating a Revision Strategy

Rewriting: Getting Feedback

Rewriting: The Final Draft

Techniques to Get Started - Outlining

Techniques to Get Started - Using Systematic Techniques

Thesis Statement and Controlling Idea

Writing: Getting from Notes to Your Draft - Freewriting

Writing: Getting from Notes to Your Draft - Summarizing Your Ideas

Writing: Outlining What You Will Write

Chapter 3: Thinking Strategies

A Word About Style, Voice, and Tone

A Word About Style, Voice, and Tone: Style Through Vocabulary and Diction

Critical Strategies and Writing

Critical Strategies and Writing: Analysis

Critical Strategies and Writing: Evaluation

Critical Strategies and Writing: Persuasion

Critical Strategies and Writing: Synthesis

Developing a Paper Using Strategies

Kinds of Assignments You Will Write

Patterns for Presenting Information

Patterns for Presenting Information: Critiques

Patterns for Presenting Information: Discussing Raw Data

Patterns for Presenting Information: General-to-Specific Pattern

Patterns for Presenting Information: Problem-Cause-Solution Pattern

Patterns for Presenting Information: Specific-to-General Pattern

Patterns for Presenting Information: Summaries and Abstracts

Supporting with Research and Examples

Writing Essay Examinations

Writing Essay Examinations: Make Your Answer Relevant and Complete

Writing Essay Examinations: Organize Thinking Before Writing

Writing Essay Examinations: Read and Understand the Question

Chapter 4: The Research Process

Planning and Writing a Research Paper

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Ask a Research Question

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Cite Sources

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Collect Evidence

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Decide Your Point of View, or Role, for Your Research

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Draw Conclusions

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Find a Topic and Get an Overview

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Manage Your Resources

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Outline

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Survey the Literature

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Work Your Sources into Your Research Writing

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found? - Human Resources

Research Resources: What Are Research Resources?

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found?

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found? - Electronic Resources

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found? - Print Resources

Structuring the Research Paper: Formal Research Structure

Structuring the Research Paper: Informal Research Structure

The Nature of Research

The Research Assignment: How Should Research Sources Be Evaluated?

The Research Assignment: When Is Research Needed?

The Research Assignment: Why Perform Research?

Chapter 5: Academic Integrity

Academic Integrity

Giving Credit to Sources

Giving Credit to Sources: Copyright Laws

Giving Credit to Sources: Documentation

Giving Credit to Sources: Style Guides

Integrating Sources

Practicing Academic Integrity

Practicing Academic Integrity: Keeping Accurate Records

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material - Paraphrasing Your Source

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material - Quoting Your Source

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material - Summarizing Your Sources

Types of Documentation: Bibliographies and Source Lists

Types of Documentation: Citing World Wide Web Sources

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - APA Style

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - CSE/CBE Style

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - Chicago Style

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - MLA Style

Types of Documentation: Note Citations

Chapter 6: Using Library Resources

Finding Library Resources

Chapter 7: Assessing Your Writing

How Is Writing Graded?

How Is Writing Graded?: A General Assessment Tool

The Draft Stage

The Draft Stage: The First Draft

The Draft Stage: The Revision Process and the Final Draft

The Draft Stage: Using Feedback

The Research Stage

Using Assessment to Improve Your Writing

Chapter 8: Other Frequently Assigned Papers

Reviews and Reaction Papers: Article and Book Reviews

Reviews and Reaction Papers: Reaction Papers

Writing Arguments

Writing Arguments: Adapting the Argument Structure

Writing Arguments: Purposes of Argument

Writing Arguments: References to Consult for Writing Arguments

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Anticipate Active Opposition

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Determine Your Organization

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Develop Your Argument

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Introduce Your Argument

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - State Your Thesis or Proposition

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Write Your Conclusion

Writing Arguments: Types of Argument

Appendix A: Books to Help Improve Your Writing

Dictionaries

General Style Manuals

Researching on the Internet

Special Style Manuals

Writing Handbooks

Appendix B: Collaborative Writing and Peer Reviewing

Collaborative Writing: Assignments to Accompany the Group Project

Collaborative Writing: Informal Progress Report

Collaborative Writing: Issues to Resolve

Collaborative Writing: Methodology

Collaborative Writing: Peer Evaluation

Collaborative Writing: Tasks of Collaborative Writing Group Members

Collaborative Writing: Writing Plan

General Introduction

Peer Reviewing

Appendix C: Developing an Improvement Plan

Working with Your Instructor’s Comments and Grades

Appendix D: Writing Plan and Project Schedule

Devising a Writing Project Plan and Schedule

Reviewing Your Plan with Others

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Definition of bibliography noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

bibliography

• There is a useful bibliography at the end of each chapter.
• The book includes a selective bibliography of works on French art.
• You'll find the professor's book in the bibliography.
• an extensive bibliography of books and articles
• put together
• in a/​the bibliography
• bibliography of

Questions about grammar and vocabulary?

Find the answers with Practical English Usage online, your indispensable guide to problems in English.

• [uncountable] the study of the history of books and their production Topics History c1

Nearby words

What Is a Bibliography?

• Writing Research Papers
• Writing Essays
• English Grammar
• M.Ed., Education Administration, University of Georgia
• B.A., History, Armstrong State University

A bibliography is a list of books, scholarly  articles , speeches, private records, diaries, interviews, laws, letters, websites, and other sources you use when researching a topic and writing a paper. The bibliography appears at the end.

The main purpose of a bibliography entry is to give credit to authors whose work you've consulted in your research. It also makes it easy for a reader to find out more about your topic by delving into the research that you used to write your paper. In the academic world, papers aren't written in a vacuum; academic journals are the way new research on a topic circulates and previous work is built upon.

Bibliography entries must be written in a very specific format, but that format will depend on the particular style of writing you follow. Your teacher or publisher will tell you which style to use, and for most academic papers it will be either MLA , American Psychological Association (APA), Chicago (author-date citations or footnotes/endnotes format), or Turabian style .

The bibliography is sometimes also called the references, works cited, or works consulted page.

Components of a Bibliography Entry

Bibliography entries will compile:

• Authors and/or editors (and translator, if applicable)
• Title of your source (as well as edition, volume, and the book title if your source is a chapter or article in a multi-author book with an editor)
• Publication information (the city, state, name of the publisher, date published, page numbers consulted, and URL or DOI, if applicable)
• Access date, in the case of online sources (check with the style guide at the beginning of your research as to whether you need to track this information)

Order and Formatting

Your entries should be listed in alphabetical order by the last name of the first author. If you are using two publications that are written by the same author, the order and format will depend on the style guide.

In MLA, Chicago, and Turabian style, you should list the duplicate-author entries in alphabetical order according to the title of the work. The author's name is written as normal for his or her first entry, but for the second entry, you will replace the author's name with three long dashes. 

In APA style, you list the duplicate-author entries in chronological order of publication, placing the earliest first. The name of the author is used for all entries.

For works with more than one author, styles vary as to whether you invert the name of any authors after the first. Whether you use title casing or sentence-style casing on titles of sources, and whether you separate elements with commas or periods also varies among different style guides. Consult the guide's manual for more detailed information.

Bibliography entries are usually formatted using a hanging indent. This means that the first line of each citation is not indented, but subsequent lines of each citation are indented. Check with your instructor or publication to see if this format is required, and look up information in your word processor's help program if you do not know how to create a hanging indent with it.

Chicago's Bibliography vs. Reference System

Chicago has two different ways of citing works consulted: using a bibliography or a references page. Use of a bibliography or a references page depends on whether you're using author-date parenthetical citations in the paper or footnotes/endnotes. If you're using parenthetical citations, then you'll follow the references page formatting. If you're using footnotes or endnotes, you'll use a bibliography. The difference in the formatting of entries between the two systems is the location of the date of the cited publication. In a bibliography, it goes at the end of an entry. In a references list in the author-date style, it goes right after the author's name, similar to APA style.

• What Is a Citation?
• What Is a Senior Thesis?
• Bibliography: Definition and Examples
• Formatting Papers in Chicago Style
• Turabian Style Guide With Examples
• MLA Bibliography or Works Cited
• APA In-Text Citations
• How to Write a Bibliography For a Science Fair Project
• MLA Sample Pages
• How to Use Block Quotations in Writing
• Writing a History Book Review
• Definition of Appendix in a Book or Written Work
• MLA Style Parenthetical Citations
• Tips for Typing an Academic Paper on a Computer
• Formatting APA Headings and Subheadings
• 140 Key Copyediting Terms and What They Mean

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Bibliography Defined

The object of bibliographical study is to reconstruct for each particular book the history of its life, to make it reveal in its most intimate detail the story of its birth and adventures as the material vehicle of the living word.

–W.W. Greg (from “Bibliography–A Retrospect,” 1945)

Bibliography is the branch of historical scholarship that examines any aspect of the production, dissemination, and reception of handwritten and printed books as physical objects. (“Books” is shorthand here for various kinds of text-bearing objects, including pamphlets and single leaves.) Among the characteristic activities of this field are the following:

analyzing physical clues in specific books in order to reveal details of the underlying production process;

describing the paper (or parchment), letterforms, design, illustrations, structure, binding, and post-publication features of specific books;

determining the relationship among books that carry texts of the same works (texts both verbal and nonverbal, such as musical and choreographic notation);

writing narrative histories and technical studies of papermaking, paper use, ink, handwriting, type faces, type manufacture, book design, typesetting procedures, graphic processes, bookbinding, printing, publishing, bookselling, book collecting, libraries, provenance, and the role of the physical book in society and culture–along with biographies of the persons involved in these stories.

Traditional bibliographical approaches are also now being applied to objects carrying electronic texts. Because textual criticism and scholarly editing are partially dependent on physical evidence, they are included among the concerns of bibliographical societies. But the making of simple lists of books, which usually focuses on the subject matter of their texts, is not within the scope of bibliographical societies except when that subject matter relates to books as physical objects, or when the physicality of the books listed is recognized (as in a record of those produced in a given geographical area). What links all bibliographical pursuits is an understanding of the significance of books as tangible products of human endeavor.

–G. Thomas Tanselle (written for this website, 2020)

Copyright 2023 © The Bibliographical Society of America. All rights reserved.

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What's a Bibliography?

A bibliography is a list of all of the sources you have used (whether referenced or not) in the process of researching your work. In general, a bibliography should include:

• the authors' names
• the titles of the works
• the names and locations of the companies that published your copies of the sources
• the dates your copies were published
• the page numbers of your sources (if they are part of multi-source volumes)

OK, So What's an Annotated Bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is the same as a bibliography with one important difference: in an annotated bibliography, the bibliographic information is followed by a brief description of the content, quality, and usefulness of the source.

OK, So How Is a Bibliography Different from a "Works Cited" or "References" List?

The Works Cited or References list is only comprised of references to those items actually cited in the paper.

• Cambridge Dictionary +Plus

Meaning of bibliographic in English

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• This will allow researchers to capture bibliographic references for citing in papers and reports that they write.
• Keywords can be searched in English or French with full bibliographic citations .
• User access to the library's bibliographic data is currently by means of a card catalog .
• The database is a large collection of bibliographic records and location holdings for the worldwide network of libraries .
• This is the world's largest database of bibliographic information .
• acknowledgment
• acknowledgments phrase
• bibliographical
• bibliographically
• concordance

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Examples of bibliographic

Word of the Day

root for someone

to show support for someone who is doing something difficult

A flash in the pan (Newspaper idioms)

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• Write an equation or formula Article
• Indent the first line of a paragraph Article
• Double-space the lines in a document Article
• Create a bibliography, citations, and references Article
• Insert footnotes and endnotes Article

Create a bibliography, citations, and references

Put your cursor at the end of the text you want to cite.

Go to References  >   Style , and choose a citation style.

Select Insert Citation .

Choose  Add New Source  and fill out the information about your source.

Once you've added a source to your list, you can cite it again:

Go to References  >  Insert Citation , and choose the source you are citing.

To add details, like page numbers if you're citing a book, select Citation Options , and then Edit Citation .

Create a bibliography

With cited sources in your document, you're ready to create a bibliography.

Put your cursor where you want the bibliography.

Go to References > Bibliography , and choose a format.

Tip:  If you cite a new source, add it to the bibliography by clicking anywhere in the bibliography and selecting Update Citations and Bibliography .

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Bibliography

A bibliography gives credit to all the author’s hard work that was consulted in someone’s research. This list is usually found on the last portion or on the last page of books and/or magazines, most of which can be academic.

Download the Bibliography Article in PDF

Table of content, bibliography definition & meaning, what is a bibliography, 10 types of bibliography, bibliography uses, purpose, importance, what’s in a bibliography parts, how to design a bibliography, bibliography vs. references, what’s the difference between bibliography, literature, and biography, bibliography sizes, bibliography ideas & examples, sustainable development bibliography.

School Project Bibliography

Preliminary Bibliography

Elementary Bibliography

Books Bibliography

Project Bibliography

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Annotated Bibliography

Students Bibliography

It serves as an optimal resource

Plagiarism prevention, maintaining accuracy, enhances the value of a paper, it acts as a source tracker, author names, publication information, publication date, access date.

• Bibliography Ideas and Examples
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What is a bibliography in research?

How do you add a bibliography to a table of contents, which is a correct bibliography entry, what are four resources of bibliography, what are the methods of preparing a bibliography, when was the bibliography invented, what are the branches of a bibliography, what is the bibliography in a college project, how should each reference be formatted in a bibliography, what is bibliographic documentation, what is a bibliography citation, more in documents.

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biobibliography

Definition of biobibliography

Word history.

bi- entry 2 + bibliography

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Dictionary Entries Near biobibliography

biobibliographical

Cite this Entry

“Biobibliography.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biobibliography. Accessed 2 Sep. 2023.

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