Dissertation reference page is one of dissertation sections that show your writing professionalism and academic competence. Formatting your dissertation reference page correctly increases your chances for impressing the dissertation committee and earning a positive assessment of your research.

Due to individual requirements of research schools, dissertation reference page may be formatted in different styles. Below you can find a summary of main dissertation reference requirements in MLA and APA formatting styles. This is a summary that MyAdmissionsEssay editors use in their work.

Dissertation Reference: MLA Style

When you format your dissertation reference page according to MLA style, observe the following rules:

1. Label the dissertation reference page with ‘Works Cited’ centered at the top of the page.
2. Use the same margins and headers for dissertation reference page as for all the other pages in your dissertation.
3. Double-space each entry and create a hanging indent starting from the second line of each entry.
4. List authors alphabetically by last name, inverting the names so that last names come first and vice versa
5. If there is more than one work by the same author, place three hyphens in place of author’s name when mentioning the name for the second time.
6. Italicize titles of bigger works, such as books and periodicals, and put quotation marks around the titles of smaller works, such as separate articles and poems.
7. Always mention the medium of publication, e.g. Print, Web, Film, etc.

Dissertation Reference: APA Style

Rules 2–4 from MLA style apply to APA style as well. In addition, dissertation reference page in APA style should comply to the following requirements:

1. Label the dissertation reference page with ‘References’ centered at the top of the page.
2. Italicize titles of bigger works and do not put quotation marks around the titles of smaller works.
3. List works by the same author or by authors with the same last names according to the year of publication, starting with the earliest.