Bibliography of the Bachelor Thesis: Examples and Tips

Primary sources, secondary sources and what is Wikipedia again? We explain the bibliography.

In the bibliography of your Bachelor thesis you list all primary and secondary sources, which you directly or indirectly use in your thesis. Above all, it is important that the source of your Bachelor thesis is presented in a complete, clear and above all in the required form. For each source type has its own specifications. All titles are listed alphabetically and neatly separated. Here you should make no mistakes, as these can quickly lead to the point deduction in the evaluation. Which and how many sources you should list in the bibliography of your bachelor thesis and what you have to consider, you will find out here – examples included!

What belongs to the bibliography of the bachelor thesis?

The most important thing in advance: The bibliography of your Bachelor thesis must be one thing above all else: complete! Here are listed all the titles to which you refer directly or indirectly in your thesis. Because all your statements must be comprehensible. This includes all primary sources as well as the complete secondary literature:

Primary sources are all original documents such as: Eg self-guided interviews or contracts.

As a secondary literature, however, sources are referred to, the original texts are the subject, so come from second (secondary) hand – z. B. Research papers of scientists.

Titles that you have read as part of your research but have not been quoted in your thesis do not belong in the bibliography of your Bachelor thesis. This could otherwise be interpreted by your supervisor as an artificial inflation. This means that you should have referenced each listed source in the text at least once. The bibliography of your Bachelor thesis is not intended to show which sources exist for the Bachelor thesis topic, but to guide the reader through the jungle of the used literature.

How do I format the bibliography?

In order to make the bibliography of your bachelor thesis as consistent and clear as possible, it is common practice to arrange all titles alphabetically in the bibliography – using the surname of the respective author. Even when citing itself, you should therefore always call the surname first to enhance the effect of clarity. You should first inform yourself about the formatting at your supervisor or the chair. Mostly there is a binding guide that gives you the right formatting. Whether you separate the primary and secondary sources in the bibliography of your bachelor thesis is up to you. In principle, the clearer the better.

For each type of source such. As monographs or anthologies there are exact requirements for inclusion in the bibliography of your bachelor thesis, to which you must comply! Inquire in good time which regulations exist at your university or in your department / chair. If you do not find any information, look at either the last scientific publications of your supervisor or other well-graded Bachelor theses that have been written by him.

For monographs – ie for independent publications in contrast to essays, individual contributions or anthologies – you should always always include last name, first name, main title, subtitle, place of publication, year of publication and edition. How do you separate the individual components from each other, eg. B. by commas or points, you largely left to decide. However, it is important that you proceed in a uniform manner and do not make any mistakes, as this quickly gives you many points deductions in the evaluation of your thesis.

Where does the bibliography belong?

The bibliography is in the final part of your thesis and follows directly on the conclusion of your bachelor thesis. Of course you already refer to the listed sources in the main part. After you have collected all your sources, you can insert the bibliography at the end of the processing of your bachelor thesis. Note: The bibliography of your bachelor thesis must be complete and always comes directly after your text and thus before the appendix of your bachelor thesis. When formatting your bachelor thesis, all directories are provided with a Roman numeral as page information. Also, the bibliography of your Bachelor thesis receives a Roman number as a page. If you have completed your written part so far, add your bibliography and provide this again with the following Roman number of pages.

How long should the source of the bachelor thesis be?

How many sources you list in the bibliography of your bachelor thesis, remains in principle up to you. In many humanities subjects, the rule of thumb is to use about 2-3 sources per page written! Nevertheless, the bachelor thesis bibliography should not be unnecessarily inflated. Thus, publications should be listed in the first place, in which central research results are presented on your topic as well as those sources that provide more important insights into detail issues and you quoted directly or indirectly. The number of sources also depends on whether you write a theoretical or empirical paper. In a theoretical work you will probably quote from a larger number of sources.

An incomplete bibliography can be seen at the following points:

• It is extremely short (less than a page of sources).
• It contains only monographs and no essays.
• It lists only German sources, although extensive foreign-language literature on the topic of research is available.

Attention: If you ignore important sources in the Bachelor thesis bibliography, your consideration is considered inadequate and leads to the devaluation of your work! If you are unsure about how a good literature search works, you should take one of the numerous courses that are offered in every major university library on the subject of literature research!