Bibliography
The reference list builds itself from your citations, orders itself for your style, and never drifts out of sync with what the paper actually cites.
Every writer has met the bibliography that lies. A source you cut in revision still sits in the references, the newest citation never made the list, and the alphabetizing broke somewhere around the fourth edit. Dock closes that gap by refusing to treat the list as a separate document. The bibliography is generated from the citations in your text, so it says exactly what the paper cites, no more and no less.
Every citation you insert adds its source to the list. Remove a citation and its entry leaves; add one and it appears; fix an author's name once and it updates everywhere. There is no assembling step and no alphabetizing step, because there is nothing to assemble. The list is a view of your citations, and views do not drift.
The bibliography follows the citation style your document uses, one of APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, AMA, or Vancouver. Switch the document's style and the reference list reformats in the same single action that reformats the in-text markers. See Citations for switching styles.
Styles order the reference list two ways, and Dock follows whichever yours calls for:
- Numbered styles, such as IEEE, AMA, and Vancouver, list references in the order they appear in the text and mark each claim with a number. Reorder a section or insert a citation and the numbers and the list renumber themselves.
- Author-date styles, such as APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard, mark claims with the author and year and list references alphabetically.
You never choose the ordering separately. It follows from the style, the way the style guide intends, which is one less rule to hold in your head at midnight.
Open the bibliography panel to see the reference list as it stands. It updates live with your citations, a running view of every source in the document. To save and organize the underlying sources, see the Citation Library.