Citations and Bibliography

When we write history papers, articles, and books, we need to tell our readers where we obtained our information. We do this with citations and a bibliography.

Citations occur in the text itself. Whenever we write something that is not generally known, we back up our statement with references to the primary and secondary sources from which we obtained the information. In history the citation usually takes the form of a footnote or endnote. A number is placed in the text in a somewhat smaller font and raised higher than the other characters in the line where it appears. It then refers the reader to a footnote at the bottom of the page or an endnote at the end of the chapter or book. This note includes the author, title, publishing information, and page number. In some fields, usually not history, the citation occurs in the text itself. Then it is usually just has author's last name and page number. The rest of the information is available in the bibliography.

A bibliography is usually located at the end of a paper, thesis, or book. It contains an overview of the sources an author used, which can help the reader assess the value of the work. Usually it is divided up into at least two sections, primary sources and secondary sources. It might make further distinctions too. For example, it could separate primary sources from the archives from primary sources in print. The bibliography is often a useful place for researchers to find further information on a topic.

Footnotes and bibliographies are formatted according to standard styles, whereby footnotes are formatted differently than bibliography entries. In history these styles are usually MLA, Chicago, or Turabian. Ask your professor which one she prefers. I myself do not care, as long as your work is consistent and clear. For further information, see the online guides on the research and writing page here. If you are going to write a lot of papers, you should probably also buy a style manual, but you will want to find out which one is used most often in your field.