You know those pesky end notes after research papers in high school and college? Well they’re back. In fact they never really left and are super important for writers who want to write in certain areas. If you’re writing nonfiction I’ll assume this is all old news to you but other types of writing that can benefit are historical fiction and biographies.
Sources = Credibility
I know of several well established publishers that require a bibliography in the above categories along with your query letter, bio, and submission. If it’s part of the submission guidelines you need to submit one or risk being tossed aside automatically.
So here’s a quick crash course in making a shiny bibliography page for your submissions. I’m going to be using Chicago style and if you need more info about the different types of citation you can find it here.
The bibliography is a list of all the sources used in the paper and uses this format:
- The citation list or bibliography must be single spaced.
- The last names of the authors must be arranged alphabetically.
- The second line of the source must be indented.
Chicago citations require the following details:
- Author
- Title of book/article
- Title of newspaper/journal
- Publication year
- Publication month and date
- Publisher
- City of publication
- Date of access
- Page numbers
- URL or Name of Database
View some examples here.
Hopefully this gets you started on the right track for your writing. If you are thinking of writing a nonfiction, historical fiction, or biography be sure you track you sources as you go or risk not finding things again when you need to source them.
Happy Questing!
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