All sources used in your thesis are listed in the bibliography. This can be found at the end of your thesis, after the discussion and any recommendations you provide. In this section, you list all sources in alphabetical order, according to the correct method of citing sources, e.g. APA or the Legal Authors' Guidelines. How exactly do you draw up a proper bibliography?
Correct source citation in the bibliography in your thesis
Correctly citing sources in your thesis is very important. It prevents plagiarism, and gives credit to the person whose research you cite. You mention your sources both for quotations you use, and when you paraphrase an idea. In addition to a brief mention in the main text, you should also include all the sources you use in the bibliography. There is a fixed format for this.
Many study programs work with the APA style. Are you taking a legal course? Then, you should follow the format from the Guideline for Legal Authors. In both styles, the type of source determines the way you cite it. For instance, you refer differently to publications in journals than to books or online sources.
Tip: use our source generator
Want to make sure you're citing your sources correctly? Let our APA generator or the Legal Author's Guide generator do the work for you. This way, you will quickly discover how to correctly refer to a source, both in the running text and in the bibliography.
What does the bibliography look like?
The bibliography always starts on a separate page, and is usually 1-2 pages long. You also mention the bibliography in the table of contents of your thesis. It is especially important that the bibliography for your thesis is complete, and includes every cited source.
Moreover, note the following:
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List all sources in alphabetical order. Usually, you do this in order of the author's surname. If the author's name is not known, use the title of the source for alphabetical sorting.
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Use indentation on the second and subsequent lines if a source citation takes up several lines.
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Put the title 'Bibliography' at the top of the page.
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Only put sources in the bibliography that you have cited in the text. You do not need to list sources that you have consulted for reading purposes only.
Automatically create a bibliography in Word
Word makes your life asa writer a lot easier. In Word, you can have the bibliography developed and sorted automatically. This makes producing a reading list a lot easier. Read more about it on Microsoft's site. You should still always do a manual check to make sure the automatic sorting is correct.
Example bibliography in a thesis
Do you like having an example of a bibliography to look at while you work on yours? Then, check out our examples of APA style and the examples of the Legal Authors' Guide. Furthermore, your thesis supervisor may have some examples of bibliographies to share with you. These can also give you a good idea of what such a list looks like in your programme.
More tips for writing your thesis?
Do you still find writing your thesis to be quite a challenge? We would like to give you tips for the writing process so you can get off to a flying start with your thesis. Who knows, maybe these tips will even help you on your way to graduation!