Ask any student, and they'll tell you how tedious and time-consuming it is to referencing page. Even though some students use tools to get it done quickly, but they still need to provide accurate information about the source text they're going to include. Hence, the quickest way to prepare a flawless referencing page is to learn the basic guidelines and requirements of each style.
Having said all that, learning the guidelines may turn out to be quite overwhelming for most students. This is the reason we’ve provided some insights on the three most popular citation styles which will help you present the referencing section easily.
Note: For quick MLA, APA, Oxford, Harvard referencing, Bibliograhy Maker tool can also be used.
MLA citation style for Referencing
Gather the required details
When you conduct research using MLA style of citation, you need to accumulate particular pieces of information for each citation. You will require things like author’s name, publisher, date of publication, and page numbers.
The simplest way to keep track of MLA citations is to copy and paste copyright information into a word processing document or to write it down in a notebook.
List the author's name and date of publication
Incorporate the author's last name first, and then include a comma. Add the author's first initial. Include their middle initial, if given. Add a space after the period, then type the date of publication in parentheses. Include the year first, followed by a comma, then the month and day (if given). Put a period after the closing parentheses.
Eg. Williams, H (2017, August 17)
Maintain alphabetical order in the list
Present your list of references alphabetically by the authors' last names. If there is no author listed, simply skip the author’s name and begin the entry with the title of the work.
Format the Works Cited page
Make sure to follow these practices while creating the referencing or paraphrasing page.
-Add double-space to your document, write "Works Cited" as the title of the page.
-The formatting should be in Times New Roman font, size 12, with “Works Cited” centred at the top of a new page.
-Each reference should have a hanging indent, meaning all lines below the first line should be indented by half an inch.
-There should be a period after each section of the citations. A period should always end the citation.
APA citation for Referencing
Collect the details
Note down the copyright information as you go through every piece of research. To create APA reference page citations, you will need several details like author name(s), website URL, date published, title of work, and so on.
Format the page
Ensure that your document is double-spaced, and include "References" as the title at the top-centre of the page. Place the page number to the right, and a shortened version of the title of your paper all the way to the left in all capital letters.
Capitalise the author's last name and first initial and include a period.
Titles of books should preserve the published capitalisation. Only capitalise the first word of a journal article title, unless the title consists of a proper noun (called sentence case).
Chicago style of referencing
Collect the details
As you conduct research for your academic paper, take note of all the bibliographic information that you find. This means title, author, year of publication, volume and issue number, location of publication, even the date you access the material if it’s available online.
If you’re using a book as a reference, write down all relevant details found on the copyright page. This should include the name of the publisher, the city and year of publication. For other types sources, look for this detail near the title of the piece you’re looking at.
Use notes and bibliography (if instructed)
The Notes and Bibliography (NB) method is preferred in the field of humanities (literature, history, arts). NB method allows the students to record a wide range of sources in detail, which the author-date system generally doesn't allow.
Write “Bibliography” as a title at the top-centre of the page. Leave two blank lines between this title and the first entry, and one blank line between every entry while referencing.
Parting thoughts,
This handy guide will save you from the jitters of preparing the referencing pages. You will no longer need to dread the process of citing sources and creating the referencing pages.