Bibliography

If you really had a good bibliography for a project, you could just read the bibliography and know what you had to say. You could have a room with all those books and articles and you could complete the project without ever having to leave the room. Of course, for me the bibliography doesn't take shape until the project itself is complete: it is in flux until the last moment.

Collation

I don't have a good system yet for bibliography. What I'm doing is, once I finish a chapter, collating its bibliography into a master bibliography for the whole book. When I do this collation, I eliminate duplicate entries. Then, when the book is complete, I have to make sure each reference in each chapter is in the master list, that all references are unambiguous, etc... For example, I cannot say "Mayhew 12" when there are seven work by Mayhew in the bibliography. Page 12 of what work by Mayhew?

Problems come when I revise a chapter, and have to keep the bibliography up to date; when I eliminate a chapter and have to expunge references in the bibliography. Also, the longer the master bibliography, the harder it is to collate with a list of new entries. Maybe I should keep copies of individual bibliographies, for each chapter, for my own reference, rather than folding them into the cake batter?