What is the difference between Reference and Bibliography?

It is very important to understand the practice of referencing, it is a very essential part of any academic writings. One should maintain good referencing practice in your daily writing. In the process of research and writing, we need to read a lot of literature regarding the particular topic or issue and by reading these existing literature we came to understand the topic or issue at length.  Generally, we decide to further some ideas or negate it on the basis of our gathered knowledge about the topic. 

So, in academic writing, we acknowledge the authors or the source in the way of reference which contributed to develop the understanding of the topic or issue. Therefore, if anybody uses the ideas of any published sources in their text but does not refer to the sources of the ideas or information is considered poor or lack of referencing. Furthermore, such poor or lack of referencing will not only diminish the standard of your writing but such practices could be perceived as plagiarism and may attract disciplinary action against the writer. 

Reference

Sometimes both references and bibliography used interchangeably in academic writings. However, there are differences between them.  References stand for the referred sources within the text. That means those sources you have used in the body of the text while writing. 

Bibliography

On the other hand, bibliography refers to listing all the sources you have used in your text in the form of in-text citations including a list of other related or useful sources for the writing (but you haven't used those in the text). It may include other useful sources you came across but did not use in your own writing. 

You may also like to see how to manage your reference or bibliography using MS Words' inbuilt reference management, which is very easy, effective, efficient, and time-saving for academics writing.

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