Three names are used for the list at the end of a paper, and people swap them freely in conversation. A teacher says "don't forget your bibliography" and means a reference list. A brief asks for "references" in an MLA course.
The names are not the same thing, and the difference is not only the heading. It is a difference in what belongs on the list.
Here is what each one is, which style uses which, where the styles disagree, and how to read an assignment that is loose with the words. EdCitation, which publishes this guide, checks the rule underneath all three names: its Verify references matches every entry on a list to a citation in the text.
What is the difference between a reference list, a bibliography and a works cited page?
A reference list and a works cited page hold only the sources you cited in your text, while a bibliography can also hold sources you read for background and did not cite. "Reference list" and "Works Cited" are two styles' names for the same kind of list.
- Reference list. Every source cited in the paper, and nothing else. It is the APA name, and the Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020) describes it as the works that support the ideas and claims the paper makes.
- Works Cited. MLA's name for the same thing. The Modern Language Association (n.d.-b) defines it as the sources you borrow from, and therefore cite, in the body of the project.
- Bibliography. A wider list. In Chicago's notes system, the University of Chicago Press (n.d.-b) says a bibliography holds the works the author drew on, and may add titles for further reading that the text never refers to.
The test that settles it
Could a reader find a citation in your text for every entry on the list? If yes, it is a reference list or a works cited page. If some entries are there because you read them, not because you cited them, it is a bibliography. There is no third possibility, and no style has a list that is half of each.
The word itself gives away why MLA chose differently from everyone else. The Modern Language Association (n.d.-b) explains that "Works Cited" suits a modern paper because research draws not only on printed books and articles but on films, recordings and web publications, which a "bibliography", a description of books, does not cover.
Which citation style uses which name?
APA and Harvard use a reference list, MLA uses Works Cited, and Chicago uses Bibliography with footnotes and a reference list with author-date citations. The heading you type is part of the style, and the wrong heading is an easy mark to lose.
| Style | Heading to type | What goes on it | Order | Entries built in EdCitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| APA 7 | References (bold, centred). "Reference" if there is only one | Only works cited in the text | Alphabetical by author | APA 7 |
| MLA 9 | Works Cited (centred). "Work Cited" if there is only one | Only works cited in the text. Other reading can go in a separate list headed Works Consulted, if your teacher allows it | Alphabetical by author | MLA 9 |
| Chicago 18, notes and bibliography | Bibliography | Works cited in the notes, and it may include other works consulted | Alphabetical by author | Not offered |
| Chicago 18, author-date | References | Every work cited in the text | Alphabetical by author | Chicago author-date |
| Harvard (Cite Them Right) | Reference list, or References | Only works cited in the text. A bibliography is added only if the brief asks for one | Alphabetical by author | Harvard |
| IEEE | References | Only works cited in the text | Numbered, in the order first cited | IEEE |
| Vancouver | References | Only works cited in the text | Numbered, in the order first cited | Vancouver |
APA is direct about it: the Publication Manual (7th ed.) tells writers to head the list References, and not to label it "Works Cited" or "Bibliography". We could not re-read APA's own web page on this while writing, because the APA Style site was behind a security check that day, so the rule here is taken from the manual and is repeated by every university library guide we checked.
For how the entries themselves differ between styles, see APA vs MLA vs Chicago. For the layout of the MLA page, see the MLA 9 Works Cited guide.
When may a bibliography leave out a work you cited?
In Chicago's notes and bibliography system, it may, and this is the exception most guides never mention. The University of Chicago Press (n.d.-b) says a bibliography may omit works that are tangential to the topic, or not suited to such a list, even though they were cited in the notes, while a reference list in the author-date system must include every work cited.
That difference follows from how the two systems work. In the notes system, the full details of a source are already in the footnote, so the reader is never stranded if the bibliography leaves out a one-line aside about a newspaper item. In the author-date system, the bracketed citation gives only a surname and a year, so a missing entry leaves the reader with nothing to look up.
For a student this is a narrow licence, not a wide one. It applies to Chicago's notes system, it is the author's judgement rather than a rule, and a marker who finds a cited work missing from the bibliography will assume carelessness first. Unless your brief says otherwise, list everything you cited.
What is an annotated bibliography?
An annotated bibliography is a separate kind of assignment: a list of sources in which each entry is followed by a short paragraph, the annotation, that sums up the source and judges how useful it is. It is usually set as a task on its own or as a step before a longer paper. It does not replace the reference list at the end of an essay.
The entries are formatted in whatever style the course uses, so an annotated bibliography in an APA course has APA references, each with a paragraph below it. How to write the paragraphs is covered in How to write an annotated bibliography.
What should I do when the assignment's wording is loose?
Follow the citation style named in the brief, and use the heading and contents that style calls for, even if the brief uses another word in passing. Teachers often say "bibliography" to mean "the list at the end".
Work through it in this order:
- Find the style. If the brief says "APA 7", the list is headed References and holds only cited works, whatever the brief calls it elsewhere. Check your paper, free on EdCitation, turns a brief into a checklist that names the style and the number of sources, so the style's name sits beside any loose word for the list.
- Look for a clear instruction about contents. A sentence such as "include all sources consulted" or "list your wider reading" is a real request for a bibliography, or for a second list. Follow it.
- Check the marking criteria. A criterion such as "all sources cited are listed" points to a reference list. A criterion about "breadth of reading" suggests that the marker wants to see background reading too.
- Ask, if the two conflict. "The brief says APA and also says bibliography. Do you want cited sources only?" is a fair question, and a quick one to answer.
Do not add sources you did not read in order to make a list look longer. A list entry is a claim that you used the source. Markers check, and an entry that matches nothing in your text invites the check.
Why must every entry match a citation in the text?
Every entry must match a citation because the list is a record of the sources your paper actually rests on. Each entry needs at least one citation in the text, and each citation needs an entry. If a work on the list is never cited, either cite it where you used it or delete the entry.
The styles build this into their own checking. The American Psychological Association (n.d.-a) asks writers, in its free in-text citation checklist, to confirm that the spellings of author names in the text match the spellings in the reference list, and that the publication years in the text match the years in the list. Those two questions catch most mismatches on their own, because a reference that has been retyped rather than looked up usually drifts in a name or a year. That is the case for building each entry from its record in the first place, as EdCitation's Cite a source does; it keeps a title's capitals as the publisher deposited them, so a title stored in title case still needs lowering for APA's sentence case.
There are fixed exceptions in each style. In APA, personal communications such as emails and private conversations are cited in the text only, because a reader cannot recover them. The Modern Language Association (n.d.-a) likewise needs no entry for common knowledge, or for a work you mention in passing without quoting, paraphrasing or arguing from it: naming a novel in an aside is not using it.
Checking it by hand
Mismatches usually come from editing. A paragraph is cut and its citation goes with it, but the entry stays on the list. A source is added late, cited in the text, and never typed into the list. Twenty minutes with a printout catches almost all of them, and the upload described in the next section does the same pairing in one pass:
- Print the reference list, or put it on a second screen.
- Read the paper from the start and tick each entry as you meet its citation.
- Mark any citation you cannot find on the list. Those are the ones that lose marks, because the reader has nowhere to go.
- At the end, look at the unticked entries. Each is either a source you used and forgot to cite, or one that should come off.
- Check the surname and year of each ticked pair against each other, as APA's checklist asks.
How do I check a reference list quickly?
Check two things: that every reference is a real, correctly described source, and that every citation and entry pair up. EdCitation's Verify references does both, free and with no account, and it is the best tool we know for the job because it checks against the publisher's record instead of trusting the list. It looks every entry up and never writes one, which no chatbot can do. The APA's own checklist asks for names and years to match between text and list (American Psychological Association, n.d.-a), and a record is the one place where the right name and year are already written down.
Upload the whole paper and the check runs both ways at once. Citations in the text are paired with their entries, and entries traced back to the text, so the uncited entry and the citation with nowhere to go, the two faults the hand check above hunts for, are listed for you. Every reference is returned as verified, as doubtful (marked "check this") or as not found, and a retracted paper is flagged. A source it could not check is labelled that way, never passed off as "not found", so a gap in the records is not mistaken for an invented reference. Invented references and wrong details are covered in How to check whether a reference is real.
Pro, at $8 a month, adds References from a file, which runs the same reference and citation checks on an uploaded file; the Pro plan also carries Mechanics QA and the plagiarism and AI checks. On Max, at $24 a month, come Theoretics QA and the Library (pricing).
Quick questions
Is a works cited page the same as a bibliography?
No. A works cited page lists only the sources cited in the paper, and it is the MLA name for that list. A bibliography can also include sources that were read and not cited.
Does APA use a bibliography or a reference list?
APA uses a reference list, headed References. The Publication Manual (7th ed.) says the list holds the works that support the paper, and that the labels "Bibliography" and "Works Cited" are not used in APA Style.
Can I include sources I read but did not cite?
Not in a reference list or a works cited page. If your brief asks for wider reading, put it in a bibliography, or in MLA in a separate list headed Works Consulted, with your teacher's agreement.
Do numbered styles such as IEEE and Vancouver use a bibliography?
No. IEEE and Vancouver use a list headed References. The entries are numbered in the order in which the sources are first cited in the text, not in alphabetical order.
Where does the reference list go in a paper?
On a new page after the end of the text. APA's student paper setup guide gives the order as the title page, then the text with any tables and figures embedded, then the reference list. Appendices, where a paper has them, follow the reference list. MLA puts Works Cited on a new page after the text and any endnotes.
Can a tool find the entries I never cited?
Yes. Upload the paper to EdCitation's free Verify references and it pairs each citation with an entry, so an entry nothing in the text points to, or a citation with no entry, stands out before a marker finds it.
References
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-a). In-text citation checklist. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/in-text-citation-checklist.pdf
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-b). Student paper setup guide. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/student-paper-setup-guide.pdf
- American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
- International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. (n.d.). Recommendations: Preparing a manuscript for submission to a medical journal. ICMJE. https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/manuscript-preparation/preparing-for-submission.html
- Modern Language Association. (n.d.-a). Is it ever acceptable to mention a work and not list it? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/no-works-cited-list-entry/
- Modern Language Association. (n.d.-b). Works cited, bibliography or references? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/bibliography-references/
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-a). Notes and bibliography: Sample citations. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-b). References or bibliography? The Chicago Manual of Style Online Q&A. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Documentation/faq0043.html
- University of Limerick. (n.d.). Reference list and bibliography. Glucksman Library. https://libguides.ul.ie/citeitright/ref-list