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How to Compose a History Research Paper Bibliography Correctly: A Quick Guide

There are many styles of documentation for writing. Your professor should assign the format as some fields have a crossover between APA and MLA. History is one of those subject matters. There are many features to each of the formats, but there can be a brief how-to list for your history paper. Feel free to refer to this Quick Guide:

MLA

• Date-in the citation the date is located behind the publisher and not in parentheses
• Name of Author-the complete, first and last name, of the author is noted
• Capitalizing and Underlining-the title name is underlined and all of the important words in the title get capitalization
• In-text cites-the page number and the author’s last name are used
• Reference page-it is called a Works Cited, it includes only the works you used, and it can be annotated or not
• MLA Example- Smith, Harry. My Times in the Health Field. New York, New York: Heart Publishing Press. 2001.

APA

• Date-in the citation the date is located within the parentheses and behind the author
• Name of author-the author’s last name is spelled to, but only initials are used for the first name
• Capitalizing-the title will be written in italics and then jus the first word of the title, subtitle, and all proper nouns get capitalization
• In-text-cites-the last name of the author and the date are both included
• Reference page-it is indeed called References
• APA Example- Smith, H. (2001). My Times in the Health Field. New York, New York: Heart Publishing Press.

If your teacher for History does not decide on the format, you are perfectly correct in using MLA or APA. Remember, that some Historians at the higher level also use the Chicago Manual of Style. It has citations in the form of footnotes at the bottom of the page. That example might look like this-

Sally Smith, My Life as a Ford Assembly Man (New York, New York: (Happydale Publishing and Co., 2001), 22.

All styles will require a citation. With all of them, it is placed in the paper(r at the bottom) and related to the posted entry found in the reference page. This citation would come after a source that is not your own such as quote, case study, statistic, or analysis. Use this quick reference guide to help you correctly format your next History research paper.