The Reference List page is an essential part of any scholarly paper or publication. Its purpose is to allow your reader to find the sources referenced in your paper.
Below are some general guidelines for formatting your Reference List page. Consult Figure A.16 of the appendix of the manual for a sample reference list. The bolded rules below are the ones most often forgotten by the average student!
- Head this section References and center the heading. Do not repeat this title on subsequent reference list pages.
- Leave two blank lines between title and fist item listed.
- Leave one blank line between each item listed.
- Single space within entries.
- Reference list entries have a hanging indentation: first line flush left and all subsequent lines indented the same spacing as a paragraph.
- Include sources that were cited in your paper other than a few special types of sources like the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and others listed in 18.2.2 of Turabian's A Manual for Writers. Sources consulted that were important in shaping your thinking but not specifically mentioned in-text can be added to the reference list to reflect the full body of research conducted to complete the work.
- List reference list entries alphabetically and chronologically by author or editor.
- List the first author in reverse order (last name first) and all other authors in standard order (first name, last name). Provide author name exactly as it appears on the title page.
- If there are two or more books by the same author, give the full name in the first entry and type three hyphens followed by a period for subsequent entries if it is an author. Follow by a comma and then ed. for editor or trans. for tranlator. Same applies for groups of authors or editors.
- If there are two authors or editors, provide first author's last name, first author's first name and second authors first name then second author's last name. (See examples below)
- If there are more than three authors, list all authors names starting with first author last name, first author first name and then standard first name last name for all others. The et al. convention is ONLY used for the parenthetical citation. (See examples below)
- If no author is given, incorporate the citation in the list alphabetically by title.
- Multiple pages are listed with a hyphen. For example, 98-99 OR 213-37.
- Do not separate print from electronic sources or books from journals; they should all be incorporated into one single alphabetized list.
