School of Information Management & Systems. Fall 2003.
142  Access to American Cultural Heritages.   M. Buckland.

Bibliographic style.

The one important rule is that enough information must be supplied to identify the source unambiguously. Also be accurate. Being consistent is desirable.
Books: Include at least: author/main entry, title, publisher, place, date; more generously add: subtitle, series, vols or pagination. The book title is usually in italics.
Articles in periodicals: Include at least: author, article title [in roman font, with or wothout quote marks], journal title [in italics] title, volume number, year, pages; more generously: article title and issue number.

Practice varies between publishers and between disciplines. Publishers require adherence to their "house style" concerning exact details of presentation: Spell out forenames, invert forenames/initials of second author, italicise title, punctuation, &c. Journals usually print "Instructions to authors" regularly; look at some recent issues to identify required style. For books examine examples of publisher's books and ask for guidelines.

Best general guide is The Chicago Manual of Style. 14th ed. 1993, new edition expected Fall 2003. 900 pages of detailed guidance on many aspects of writing and book production: punctuation, proof-reading, indexes, spelling, capitalizing, &c., &c.

Note increasing use of "author-date" style: Cite reference in text by mentioning authors name and year of publication, e.g. "Previous theories (Morton 1965; Sanchez 1976) were disproved by Jones (1987)." List of references contains year of publication following authors name:
Morton, J. 1965. A Theory of Style. Oakland: Duncan.

Information not derived from the document is usually supplied in [square brackets].

Information found online: Specify the address (location), the title, and the date and time seen (if known, the date posted).

See The Chicago Manual of Style for examples. Also:
Li, Xia & Nancy B. Crane. 1993. Electronic Styles: A Handbook for Citing Electronic Information. 2nd ed. Medford, NJ: Information Today. MAIN PN171.F56 L5 1996 and other campus libraries.
Sides, Charles H. 1999. How to write & present technical information. 3rd ed. Oryx. ENGIN T11.S528 1999
Weiss, Edmond H. 1991. How to write usable user documentation. 2nd ed. Oryx. ENGIN QA76.165 W44 1991 (1st ed. in MAIN)