Essentials of Writing a Works Cited Page

Everyone knows that proper referencing is a half of a good work on a paper done. If your Works Cited page looks neat and the applicable reference style is used right, get ready to get an A. But if it doesn’t look sharp, the instructor will have no choice but mark down the final result despite how good the research and content is. And since you do want to add in professionalism of your paper, you should chalk up the following guide with great attention.

Start with collecting information about referential sources you have used

No essay or term paper is good unless your thesis statement and findings are backed up by reference sources. Do you have any in your work? Applying a reference style is must-have.

All in all, there are three major citation styles: APA for scientific papers, Chicago for publishing, and MLA for Liberal Arts and Humanities. But before you start applying any of them, first you have to gather information about the referential materials in general. You need: author, title, date of publishing, publisher, where it was published, medium, and the number of pages.

Got the required info? Decide on which of the styles suits your particular paper and adopt it in your paper. To learn all the ins and outs a reference style, download a guideline on the Web or consult the instructor for handouts and tips.

This is how the Works Cited page looks like

The page consists of entries of reference sources used in your paper. First go books, then periodicals, then websites, and then interviews. All entries are to be stated in the alphabetical order starting from the author’s last name.

Book: Last name. First name. Title. City of publication: publisher, year of publication. Medium.

Periodical: Author. Article title. Periodical title, date, month, year: number of pages. Medium.

Website: Editor or author. Name of Essay Site. Version number. Name of institution affiliated, date of creation. Medium. Date of access.

Interview: Interviewee. Personal interview. Day, month, year.

Note that if there are a couple of authors of a book, the first writer is listed in the last name – first name key. The subsequent authors are listed in the first name – last name key correspondingly.

To make sure you’ve done everything up to the mark, take time to proofread both content of your paper and the way you applied a reference style. In case you’re having trouble with any of the tasks, play it on the safe side and ask professional academia experts for help.