Bibliography
Bibliography (from Greek βιβλιογραφία, lit. book writing) in its most general sense is the study and description of books. It can be divided into enumerative or systematic bibliography, which results in an overview of publications in a particular category, and analytical or critical bibliography, which studies the production of books. Bibliographical works are almost always considered tertiary sources.
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Types
Enumerative bibliography
A bibliography is a list, either indicative or comprehensive, of works:
- author
- date
- subject
- country or state of mind
- published in a specified period
- mentioned in, or relevant to, a particular work (a bibliography of this type, sometimes called a reference list should normally appear at the end of any paper in scientific literature)
A bibliography may be arranged by author, topic or some other scheme. Annotated bibliographies give descriptions about how each source is useful to an author in constructing a paper or argument. These descriptions, usually a few sentences long, provide a summary of the source and describes its relevance to the topic of the bibliography.
Bibliographies differ from library catalogs by including all relevant publications rather than items actually found in a particular library. However, some national libraries' catalogs also serve as national bibliographies, as they contain (almost) all their countries' publications.
Analytical bibliography
The critical study of bibliography is subdivided into descriptive, historical, and textual bibliography. Descriptive bibliography is the close examination of a book as a physical object, recording its size, format, binding, and so on, while historical bibliography takes a broader view of printing and publishing. Textual bibliography is another name for textual criticism.
See also
- Annotated bibliography
- Ibid
- List of bibliographies
- Op cit
- BibTeX
- The Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies
- Reference management software
- SourceAid LLC
Bibliography
Belanger, Terry. Bibliography defined. Bibliographical Society of America, 2003
Categories
Bibliography | Books | Library and information science