Information on creating a bibliography
[Please note that many of the titles given in this document
are fictious and are only listed here to serve as examples.]
For this course you are expected to use the MLA style.
The source for the information given below [listed according to MLA
bibliographic style] is:
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 4th
ed. New
York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1995.
A bibliography is a list of the works referred to in
the text and notes of a term paper or article. It comes at the end of the
paper and starts on a new page, labeled “Bibliografía” [or
“Obras citadas”], and is double-spaced. The list is in alphabetical
order by the last name of the authors; anonymous works are listed alphabetically
by title (according to the first word in the title which is not a definite
or indefinite article: the anonymous book La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes
would be listed with the entries for the letter V, for vida). The
first line of each entry starts at the left margin; subsequent lines are
indented five spaces (a “hanging indent”).
For a bibliographic entry, three pieces of information
are given: 1) the author, 2) the title of the work, and 3) the place and
date of publication, with periods separating these three types of information.
More specifically, this information is given:
-
The (principal) author's name, with last name first, then middle name(s)
or initial. The names of additional authors for the work are not reversed.
A period follows the name of the last author. When citing two or more works
by the same author: 1) the author's name is indicated by three dashes for
all entries after the first one; 2) the writer may list the works alphabetically
by title or chronologically.
-
An anonymous book:
La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes...
-
A book with one author:
Ambrose, Stephanie. Cuentos de amor...
-
More than one book by the same author (in this case, Kelly is the same author
for both works; the works by this same author may be listed in alphabetical
or chronological order):
Arnett, Julie. Mis mejores éxitos...
——. “El rascacielos”...
——. “El lavaventanas”...
-
A book with two or more authors:
Butler, Emily, Nathan Clinton, and Jenna Beachy. The Perfect S210
Manual: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About
Spanish
Composition and Grammar...
-
A book with multiple authors, most of whom are not listed (“et al”
= “and others”):
Dyarman, Jennifer, et al. Who's Who Among IPFW's Spanish Students...
-
The complete title, including the subtitle if there is one. These should
be in italics or underlined (generally long published
works), or in “quotation marks” (short works and unpublished ones).
Exception: the Bible and books of the Bible are not indicated with either
underlining or quotes. Normally the title is followed by a period.
-
Italicized [underlined if handwritten or done on a typewriter]:
titles of published books, plays (any length), long poems (particularly ones
published as books), periodicals and other magazines, newspapers, film/radio/TV
programs, operas, etc.
-
The title of a novel or book:
Miller, Victoria. Un día con la familia Gainer...
-
The title of a play:
Rodríguez, Héctor. La vida todavía es
sueño...
-
The title of an epic poem (long poem):
El cantar de mio Cid...
-
The name of a magazine or newspaper:
El País...
-
An italicized title containing the name of another long work (the included
title is not italicized):
Eck, Emily. Discovering the Comic in Don Quixote...
-
“In quotation marks”: Titles of articles, essays, short stories,
short poems, songs, chapters of books, unpublished works, lectures, speeches,
courses, and individual episodes of radio and TV programs.
-
The title of an article (here, given with an included book title given in
italics):
Jehle, Fred F. “The Altisidora Episode in Don Quijote.”
...
-
The title of a short story:
Ward, Anne. “La tarde de béisbol.” ...
Haney-Russell, Alane. “¿No debe estar aquí? ¿Quién?
¿Qué?.” ...
-
The title of a song:
“La cucharacha.”
-
Place of publication, publisher, date:
-
For books, the city of publication comes first, followed by a colon, then
the name of the publisher, followed by a comma, plus the year, followed by
a period. If more than one place of place of publication is listed, use just
the first one for your bibliographic entry. Shorten the publisher's name
[1) omit articles (e.g., A, The, El, Los) and descriptive words (Books, House,
Publishers, Press, Co., Inc.); 2) if the publisher's name is a person's name,
omit all but the surname (John Wiley and Sons = Wiley); 3) if the publisher's
name consists of the names of more than one person, omit all but the first
(Harcourt Brace = Harcourt)].
-
For articles in periodicals, yearbooks, etc., the place of publication and
publisher are normally not listed. Include: 1) the title of the article (in
quotation marks) followed by a period; 2) the name of the periodical (in
italics or underlined), followed by a comma; 3) the volume number, edition,
or title of the volume; 4) the year in parentheses (which is sometimes preceded
by the month or season) followed by a colon; 5) the pages for the article,
followed by a period; for newspapers the system is somewhat different (see
the last example). Note that any double quotation marks included in the title
are reduced to single quotation marks, as in the first example below.
-
A short story in a magazine or an article in a journal, where there is a
month or season instead of an issue number. This is for the April issue of
volume 24 (written in Arabic numerals, not Roman numerals, and note the comma
after 24 to keep this volume number from being confused with the day of the
month), that is, for the year 2001 :
Lee, Jennifer, and KaSandra Smith. “La vida es así: ‘Qué
será,
será.’” Selecciones del Reader's
Digest, 24, abril (2003): 88-92.
-
An article in a periodical. Note that the volume number (in Arabic numerals)
and issue number are given before the date, divided from each other by a
period but no space; in this example, 65.3 means volume number 65, issue
number 3:
McGowen, Zachary. “Comentarios sobre mis obras.” Boletín
de la Real
Academia Española, 65.3 (2003): 201-44.
-
A newspaper article. Give the name of the newspaper (italicized), followed
by a comma, then the complete date —day, month, year— (followed
by a comma and the name of the edition if it has one, such as “late
ed.” or “natl ed.”) plus a colon, then the section number
and page number (e.g. “A1” for section A page 1, or “sec.
2” for section two) followed immediately by a plus (+) sign if the article
is continued on another page somewhere, then a closing period:
Monroe, Laura, Lori Miodus, and Kimery Metzger. “Cómo escribir
cuentos interesantes.”
New York Times, 7 May 2003, D1+.
Other information:
-
Capitalization:
-
English. In both titles and subtitles, capitalize all words except the following
when they are not the first word in a title or subtitle: 1) articles
(a, an, the, e.g., Gone with the Wind); 2)
prepositions (e.g., against, between, for, in,
of, to, e.g., Breakfast at Tiffany's); 3) coordinating conjunctions
(and, but, for, nor, or, so,
yet e.g., The High and the Mighty); 4) the to in infinitives
(e.g.., A Time to Die).
-
Spanish:
-
For titles of articles and books, use capital letters only for the first
word of the title or subtitle and for proper nouns. [Remember the other rules,
for example that Spanish does not capitalize days of the week, months of
the year, nouns and adjectives derived from proper nouns such as languages
and nationalities, titles preceding personal names, and the words for
“street” / “square” / “river” / “lake”
etc. in most place names.] Examples: El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote
de la Mancha; “Dos fiestas mexicanas”, “A orillas del
río Misisipí.”
-
Often for the names of periodicals and series all major words are capitalized:
Revista de Filología Española.
-
Ranges of numbers, as in page numbers.
-
In a range of numbers, give the second number in full if less than 100: 2-5,
12-69.
-
For larger numbers, give only the last two digits of the second number, unless
more are needed: 73-101, 101-06, 221-22, 438-89, 899-1004, 1459-542.
-
In a range of years, give both dates in full unless they fall within the
same century: 1998-99, 1888-1921.