Computer Technology

A citation is a reference to a source.

Bibliographies are “a section of a written work containing citations, not quotations, to all the books referenced in the work.” (Wikipedia) (Look at that great citation I just did!) Basically, when you write a bibliography, you write a list of all of sources you used to help you write your report. You format your bibliography in a special way, which we will get to later in the lesson.

Go to THIS website and check out the citation builder that’s listed. (If I were you, I would save this website - I think it kept my sanity throughout college when I had reports due.) Let’s go through together and create a bibliography.

The first question this citation builder asks us is “What type of information source do you have?” Well, what kind do we have? Hang on while I grab the first book off of my bookshelf. Okay. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Click on BOOK.


You will see a page come up like this (See below). Fill in all of the information you can. (If you can't find all of the information, which is rare, leave that field blank.)

1. Author
2. Book Title – see how it gave me directions to only capitalize the first word?
3. Publication year – I had to open my book and find this.
4. Publisher – I had to open my book and find this.
5. Publisher location – I had to open my book and find this.
6. Number of pages

When you filled in all of the information, click MAKE CITATION. Abra Cadabra – you now have a lovely page with all of the citations you could have ever dreamed of!


There’s MLA style, APA style, and two other styles that are not as common as MLA and APA. Copy and paste the style you want into a word document and BAM you have a great, correctly-cited bibliography. You can also choose to modify the citation in case you mess up, or you can start over. Yes – it’s just that easy!