Bibliographic Elements

Bibliographic elements - data elements which when taken together describe a work uniquely.  These elements include author and/or editor, title and/or subtitle, place of publication, publisher, date of publication, and sometimes volume or edition information.  For material published in electronic media, additional elements may be necessary in order to describe the work.  The bibliographic elements, when taken together form a bibliographic citation.

Bibliographic elements are all you need from a source in order to cite it in a bibliography.  We depend upon the bibliographic elements to help anyone who wishes to review, update, or add to our paper, to know, without a doubt, that he/she is using the same background material that we used. The bibliographic elements help to describe the sources you use specifically. The information needed varies according to what type of source you are using.  For example, the information needed about a book is different from that for a journal or magazine article. In this class you will create source logs and citations for every information source you use. 

·         Author/Editor Last name listed first.  Do not include titles (Sir) or educational degrees (Ph.D., M.S.).  Include any abbreviations that are important (Jr., III).

• Title For books, list the full title as it appears on the title page (NOT THE COVER).  Underline all words in the title.  If the book has a subtitle, use a colon to separate the title and subtitle (if there is already a punctuation mark, use that).  Place a period after the entire title, unless it ends in another punctuation mark.  Underline the entire title, including any colon, subtitle, and punctuation in the title, but do not underline the period that follows the title.
• Edition  For books, if the edition (2nd ed., 4th ed., Rev. ed., etc.) is listed as such on the title page, include that information in your bibliography directly after the title of the book.

• Volume   If your book is one volume of a multi-volume set, include the volume number you used.  It goes directly after the edition.  If there is no edition, the volume number goes directly after the title.

• Place of Publication  For books, list only the FIRST city printed on the title page.  Include the state or country only if the city is not well known.

• Publisher  List a shortened form of the publisher’s name. Omit words such as company, press, publishers, house.

• Date of Publication  For books, use the most recent copyright date.  You may need to look on the back of the title page to find this date.

Elements needed for a book:

1.        Author or editor’s full name

2.        Title (including the sub-title)

3.        Edition

4.        Volume number (if it is part of a set of books)

5.        Series name (if applicable)

6.        Place of Publication

7.        Publisher

8.        Date of Publication

 

 Elements needed for a magazine or newspaper article:

1.         Author of the article

2.        Title of magazine article

3.        Title of magazine

4.        Date of Magazine

5.        Page Numbers of article

 

Elements needed for an article in a scholarly journal:

1.         Author of the article

2.        Title of journal article

3.        Title of journal

4.        Volume number and issue number

5.        Year of Publication

6.        Page Numbers of article