Bibliographic Entry
A single item in a bibliography or reference list.
A bibliographic entry is the full description of one source, formatted so that a reader can identify and locate it. It is the unit from which every bibliography, works-cited list, and reference list is built.
A complete entry usually includes the author, title, publisher or journal, place and date of publication, and any identifying numbers such as DOI or ISBN. The order and punctuation of these elements are fixed by the chosen style guide — MLA, Chicago, APA, and so on.
Entries are not neutral. A well-constructed entry tells a careful reader a great deal: the age of a source, its scholarly apparatus, its institutional home, whether it is a first edition or a translation. This is why sloppy entries are not just a formatting problem; they are a credibility problem.
Common mistake: treating an entry as decoration rather than a finding tool. If a reader cannot reconstruct the source from the entry, the entry has failed.
“Orwell, George. 1984. London: Secker and Warburg, 1949.”
Keep reading the glossary
The list of works cited or consulted, printed at the end of a book, chapter, or article.
A formal reference that lets a reader locate the source of a quote.
A permanent digital identifier that points to a work no matter where it moves online.
The publisher's final, fixed version of a scholarly article.