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So here\u2019s the thing. What\u2019s the difference between a bibliography and a reference list?<\/p>\n
I was always taught there was<\/em> an important difference between a bibliography and a reference list. The reference list is the stuff you actually cite in the paper. The bibliography is all of the books you read, some\/a lot of which actually aren\u2019t cited. There are also bibliographies, annotated or not, which are a list of books somebody thinks are the definitive guide to a topic.<\/p>\n I notice that a lot of university guides for students \u2013 you know those online how-to-do-academic-work compendia that all undergrads are meant to look at \u2013 maintain that distinction. A bibliographic list tells your tutor all the stuff you read, while your references are confined to the things you used.\u00a0My own university for example says<\/p>\n The term\u00a0bibliography<\/em>\u00a0is the term used for a list of sources (e.g. books, articles, websites) used to write an assignment (e.g. an essay). It usually includes all the sources consulted even if they not directly cited (referred to) in the assignment.<\/p>\n Indeed, as an undergrad history student, many many moons ago, I had to submit both bibliographic and reference lists for assessment purposes. No wonder the difference is cemented into my memory! And as a supervisor I often ask PhDders to send me their bibliographies so I can see what they are reading, and planning to read.<\/p>\n Harvard and APA style guides make the same distinction. A bibliography is the total, the lot, the whole shebang and the reference list the selected, the particular.<\/p>\n However, the definitions that are offered for bibliography and references in dictionaries often conflate the two. References are given as a synonym for a bibliography. A bibliography is defined as the list of actual citations in a text. What\u2019s more, I often see academic writing advice in print and online which also equates the two. Even more important perhaps is the fact that I very often<\/em> see theses where the reference list is called the bibliography. Does this suggest that supervisors too don\u2019t share views on what the two terms actually mean?<\/p>\n But I realised recently as I blanched at yet another piece of writing advice which referred to a reference list as a bibliography that the question of nomenclature is one of my correctional lexical moments, an instance where I have a kind of visceral red pen compulsion. Right or wrong, convention bound as it probably is, I want to see a reference list called references.<\/p>\n