2) Writing a bibliographical reference

The bibliography provides an alphabetical list of all sources used in a given work. This page, most
often titled Bibliography/ References, is usually placed at the end of the work preceding the
appendix. It should include all sources cited within the work and may sometimes include other
relevant sources that were not cited but provide further reading.

• If no author or editor is listed, the title or, as a last resort, a descriptive phrase may be used.

• All sources (books, articles, Web sites, etc.) are arranged alphabetically by: The author
surname, first name initials (publication date). Title. Place of publication: House of
publication.

Print sources

A book by one author

• McDonough, S. H. (1995). Strategy and skill in learning a foreign language. London:

Edward Arnold.

A book by two authors

• O’Malley, J. M. & Chamot, A. U. (1990). Learning strategies in second language acquisition.

Cambridge: CUP.

An article in a journal

• Author’s surname, F.N. (Year of publication). Title of the article. Title of the Journal,
volume(number of issue if there is one), page number(s).

Example:

• Skater, A. (1990). Rollerblading on a secondary level. Secondary Education, 54, 113-25.

• Carson, J.E. (1990). Reading-writing relationships in first and second language. TESOL
Quarterly, 24 (2), 245-266.

Thesis :

• Author (Year). Title of thesis (Doctoral OR Master's thesis). University, Location.

• The reference list entry for an e-book includes the author, date, title, and source (URL or
DOI).

Electronic/online sources

E-Book:

• Author, F.N. (date). Title of book. Retrieved from http://xxxxxxxxx (Date of access)

• Author, F.N. (date). Title of book. doi:xxxxxxxxxxxx

Article in an e-journal:

• Author, F.N. (Date of electronic publication). Title of article. Title of Journal. Vol (N ) ,
PP.http://address/filename. (Date of access).

• Author, F.N. (Date of electronic publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, PP.
doi:xxxxxxxxxxxx.

Writing a reference list Exercise

• A book by Lyle F Bachman and Adrian S Palmer written in 1996. The title is: Language testing
in practice. It is published by Oxford University Press in Oxford.

• An article by Robert Cooper called: What do we learn when we learn a language? It was
published in 1970 in the journal TESOL Quarterly. It is on pages 303-314 in volume 4.

• Someone called Andy Gillett wrote this web page, which is very useful, and he worked at the
University of Hertfordshire. It was published on May 6th this year. The title is: Using English
for Academic purposes. The URL is http://www.uefap.com/ and I copied some information
from it for this exercise on Sunday November 7th at 11.00 at night.

• This was published in 1991 in Oxford and is a book by Professor John Sinclair. The title of the
book is: Corpus, concordance and collocation and the publisher was Oxford University press.

• We don't know who wrote this newspaper article. It was in the Guardian newspaper on
Saturday November 6th this year. The title is: Divorced couple fight for frozen embryos. It is
on page 18.

Key Answers

• Bachman, L. F. & Palmer, A. S. (1996). Language testing in practice. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

• Cooper, R. L. (1970). What do we learn when we learn a language? TESOL Quarterly, 4, 303-
314.

• Divorced couple fight for frozen embryos. (1999, November 6th). The Guardian, p. 18.

• Gillett, A. (2005,May 6th ). Using English for academic purposes. Retrieved November 7th,
2005, from http://www.uefap.com/

• Sinclair, J. (1991). Corpus, concordance and collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.