Put all four side by side, but without checking any list of instructions, ask yourself: What is this item a part of? Does it stand alone as its own publication? Does it exist as a component of another publication? Is it part of a regularly published journal? Is it a single page on a web site? Knowing the answer will help you figure out which elements belong in each bibliographic entry—the title of the thing itself, the title of what it is a part of, the author(s) of the thing itself, the editor(s) of what it is a part of, the page numbers of the thing itself, and the name and date of publication of what it is a part of.
A book is generally the easiest of these to identify. A book is a publication; the entire thing should have a single main title. Most books show their author, editor, or sponsoring organization on the title page. The copyright page often lists the edition, publisher, publication date, place of publication, and/or ISBN number. Although a book can consist of numerous chapters, when you are citing a whole book, you give information about the whole book, not information about the title and pages of one chapter.
A chapter is part of a book. It may have its own author(s) and its own title. The whole book may have a different title and one or more editors. Both the chapter and the whole book need to be cited. A chapter citation usually provides the chapter author(s) and chapter title, followed by the title of the book, the book’s editor(s), the publisher information, and the page numbers for the chapter. Sometimes there is confusion because the person making the citation forgets to identify the chapter author or chapter title, listing only the book title. Or the person making the citation mistakenly treats the editor of the book as the author of the chapter. If you’re unsure whether you have identified the author correctly, take a look at the book’s table of contents and the first page of the chapter to see how they are related.
A journal article is similar to a chapter in that it is part of another publication, but that publication is a journal. Identify the article’s title, author(s), the journal’s title, the publication date, the volume and issue number, and the page numbers of the article. There might also be a digital object identifier (DOI). The volume and issue number tell you which version of the journal contains your article, while the page numbers tell you where your article is in that version. Be careful, though: sometimes when you download an article from a database, it doesn’t look like anything you’ve read before. Compare the downloaded PDF to the journal’s article header or the article’s database record to make sure you have all of the information. Don’t rely solely on the file name.
A web source requires some thought because websites contain many types of materials. A webpage might be an article, report, database entry, description of a collection, news item, or reference. Give the specific title of the page, and try to determine the name of the overall site or organization responsible for the page. See if there is an individual author listed, or any indication of publication or update dates. Find the permanent URL for the page. See if the page refers to a document title, and give that too. Don’t assume that what is listed in the browser tab represents the entire title, and don’t assume that just because an organization is listed at the bottom of the page, it is the corporate author.
An easy way to check is to put together a sentence about the source in a simple form before you begin writing the bibliographic entry. For instance, you could say, “This is a chapter by one author in a book edited by two authors,” or, “This is an article published in volume 18, issue 2 of the journal XYZ.” Once you’ve established that sentence, it’s easier to know which parts go into the bibliographic entry, and which parts do not. If you find yourself having trouble putting together that sentence, look back at the title page, article header, table of contents, or website information before adding the entry to your bibliography.
