Research

Information to collect for a working bibliography

For an entire book

All authors; any editors or translators
Title and subtitle
Edition (if not the first)
Publication information: city, publisher, and date
Medium: print, web, and so on
Date you retrieved the source (for an online source)

For an article

All authors of the article
Title and subtitle of the article
Title of the journal, magazine, or newspaper
Date; volume, issue, and page numbers
Medium: print, web, DVD, and so on
Date you retrieved the source (for an online source)

For an article retrieved from a database (in addition to the preceding information for an article)

Name of the database (such as Academic Search Premier, PsycINFO)
Accession number or other number assigned by the database
Digital object identifier (DOI), if there is one
URL of the database home page or of the journal's home page if there is no DOI
Date you retrieved the source

R-supp-12

USING SOURCES RESPONSIBLY: Use care when printing or saving articles in PDF files. The files themselves may not include some of the elements you need to cite the source properly, especially page numbers. You may need to record additional information from the database or website where you retrieved the PDF file.

For a web source (including visual, audio, and multimedia sources)

All authors, editors, or composers of the source
Editor or compiler of the web source, if there is one
Title and subtitle of the source
Title of the longer work, if the source is contained in a longer work
Title of the website
Print publication information for the source, if available
Online page or paragraph numbers, if the source provides them
Date of online publication (or latest update)
Sponsor or publisher of the site (often in a copyright notice or an “About” page)
Date you accessed the source
URL or permalink of the page on which the source appears

Note: For the exact bibliographic format to use in your working bibliography and in the final paper, see MLA, APA, or Chicago.