What Is the Purpose of a Bibliography?
A bibliography allows other people to better evaluate your paper or presentation. By looking at your research and sources, they can find out if your paper or presentation is scholarly, and assess whether or not they think your ideas are true. Bibliographies are also a way of sharing information. If someone wanted to do research in the same areas as you, they might use your bibliography to find relevant books and articles on the topic. Having a bibliography is also a way of acknowledging other people’s work. It is considered ethical to acknowledge any ideas, phrases, quotations, and works that you use in your work and assignments that are not your own. To fail to acknowledge other people’s work is considered plagiarism, and the university has strict rules regarding plagiarism. Being charged with plagiarism can lead to being expelled from the university.