Using the
Highlander Way Bibliography Format...
"When you steal from one author,
it's plagiarism. When you steal from many, it's research. "
--Wilson Mizner.
TERMS TO KNOW:
Bibliography: Alphabetically arranged list of sources used in
an essay or report. Appears at the end of a paper.
Reference: A single bibliography entry which credits one information
source.
Citation: A synonym for reference.
Style Manual: A book, pamphlet or sheet which shows a
specific format for bibliographies, citations, footnotes, endnotes, etc,
and gives instruction in its use. You are now looking at the Highlander
Way Bibliography Format style manual.
NOTE: The HIGHLANDER WAY BIBLIOGRAPHY
FORMAT is used only for bibliographies-- not for other forms of
citation like footnotes, endnotes, etc.
What's a BIBLIOGRAPHY?
When you do an essay or report, you take other
people's ideas, think about them, and put them together in a way which
is uniquely your own. The ideas you encounter when doing your project
may come from books, magazine articles, web sites, almanacs, encyclopedias,
newspaper articles-- from any source created by an authority in
the subject you're writing about.
A bibliography
is an alphabetical listing which
you put at the end of your report to show all the information sources you
used in creating it. This is important for a couple of reasons:
#1 You are giving due credit to the authors whose
ideas you incorporate into your paper.
#2 Your teacher may want to check and see that
you used proper sources when researching your topic.
A teacher may sometimes require that you use a certain number of sources
or a certain variety of sources. Often, a teacher will check the sources
you list to insure that you did not copy portions of the author's work
word-for-word. Taking an author's exact words and using them as your
own, without giving them due credit, is a form of stealing known as plagiarism.
Depending upon the circumstance, plagiarism
can earn you an automatic "F," get you expelled or get you in trouble with
the law. REMEMBER: Your teacher wants to see that you UNDERSTAND
the subject that you're writing about. Copying someone else's work
does not demonstrate understanding! Reading many authors'
work, considering it carefully, then putting your resulting knowledge and
thoughts into your own words does.
Librarians and teachers are fond of an old saying
which, while it is meant to be funny, is also largely true: "When
you steal from one author, it's plagiarism. When you steal from many,
it's research. " When your teachers
read your assigned papers, they want to see that you read and understood
different information sources and then "blended" that knowledge together
in your own way. That's what research is all about!
Bibliographies can be written in many forms.
Though most are essentially the same, there are many, many slightly different
formats--known as "STYLES." The "style manual" that you use
is determined by your teacher. The HIGHLANDER
WAY BIBLIOGRAPHY FORMAT is a blend
of many of the most popular styles. The main difference is that it
is simplified. Rather than having dozens of different formats for
listing the many different types of information that a someone can use
to complete their research, the Highlander Way format has only four variations.
Almost any source will fit into one of the four formats. One of the ways
the format accomplishes this simplicity is by ignoring, in many cases,
the means in which information is delivered and concentrating,
instead on the source itself. What does this mean? Consider
how the following information source might be listed using a typical bibliography
format:
A magazine article, from National Geographic,
accessed using the InfoTrac database and index, which was made available
through a web site.
Instead of writing a bibliography reference for
the National Geographic article only, as you would with our format, most
styles also require that you include information about the means in
which the article happened to be accessed. This leads to a much longer
reference, with the user required to provide information about (in this
case) the Infotrac database, and the web site which offers it, as
well as the National Geographic article itself. It gets complicated
fast! Necessary information then includes stuff like the web address, the
database name and publisher, the date accessed, the database document number,
and more! Plus--The information required may not be apparent or easily
accessible to the student. Since there are many ways the same article might
be accessed (CD-ROM, Print, Microform, via Internet site) such requirements
lead to lots of slightly different bibliography formats. Mind boggling!
The HWMS bibliography format focuses on the important stuff: Giving credit
to the author(s) for their original material. Exactly how you got
that material is much less important. With our format, you simply concentrate
on citing the source
(magazine article), which keeps things as simple as possible.
Nuts and Bolts: How do I
use this format?
1. First of all-- as you're researching your
topic WRITE DOWN ALL OF THE INFORMATION ABOUT EACH OF YOUR SOURCES You should do this even if you aren't
sure if a particular resource will be valuable in the end. It's better
to take a few extra notes down than to end up back in the library the day
the report's due trying to find that book or article that proved so helpful--
just so that you can write it up properly for your bibliography.
If you're using a book, you'll find most of the information you need on
the books "title page" (Front and back) which is usually found just a couple
of pages into the book.
2. Choose the format most suitable to your information
source. Remember: Focus on the original SOURCE of information.
If you got a magazine article off the Web, for example, use the format
for magazines (#3) not the format for Internet sources. In general,
use the Internet source format (#4) for information which is unique
to the Internet and did not appear originally in print.
3. Plug in all of the information required to
complete the bibliography. If something required is missing, simply
skip it.
4. Lines below the first line of each reference
get indented three spaces.
5. Arrange the references on the page in alphabetical
order.
6. Label
the top of your reference page with the heading
"Bibliography."
Click
here to see what a Highlander Way format bibliography looks like.
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