Q. I am writing a research paper and would like to use parenthetical in-text citations using author-date style. However instead of including a reference list, I would like to include a bibliography, using notes-bibliography style. I thought this might be appropriate since I am writing a research paper for a course in the humanities but didn’t want to include footnotes. My professor is allowing us to use MLA or Chicago/Turabian citation style and hasn’t given us a lot of specifics.
A. A reference list (unlike a bibliography) is set up to match the parenthetical citations in the text. The in-text citations show author and year (Jones 1995), and the reference list entries begin with author and year:
Jones, Denise. 1995. Title. etc.
A bibliography entry, on the other hand, buries the year at the end of the entry. If you want to devise your own system instead of using one that is time-tested and globally employed, be prepared to defend it. And get permission from your instructor.