Writing a formal report or paper is a lot of work. You have to, of course, write sensibly. And the style of writing is very technical. You have so many guidelines to follow. How you should start your report, the tense you use, and even the spacing between each line and each paragraph are all being painfully scrutinized by the faculty reviewing your work and other members of the academe or institution to which you present your study or report. And one of the most important part or section of a paper would be the list of references or the bibliography.
 These two are highly important because in the academe and anything that concerns writing, plagiarism is a big NO. You could be expelled from school or downright shamed if you do not cite your references properly. You always have to give credit to the person who wrote the idea you used. And so people make a list of references or a bibliography. Yet, people don’t know the difference between the two. In fact, many even think the two are the same. But there is a difference between them. Then, what is the difference between bibliography and references?
Bibliography and references are quite similar in a sense that both lists down the books, magazines, journals, and everything else that you have used when writing that term paper, article, or book. However, there is a slight difference on the types of materials or rather on how you used you used them when you were writing.
Bibliography is a list of all the materials you used to write your paper. It lists all of the books, lecture slides, websites, and journals, everything that you have consulted in the process of writing your paper or book. This is regardless of the fact whether they ended up in the actual text or not. You see, when people write, they consult so many materials in order to gather ideas for what they are writing. Because the process of writing is long, you write so many drafts, some of these ideas might not exactly transpire in your final paper. But that does not mean that the materials you used that were not included in the final text should not be credited anymore. You still used them, so they should still be credited.
References are those included in the actual text. They are cited directly in the text. And references are used to support your claims and arguments. It is noted that references give more of an authoritative stand on your writing.
To sum it up, bibliography is listing all of the materials you have used, those that were indirectly included in your actual text, while references are those that you cited in your paper, those that were directly included in your text. Keep these in mind when writing your article or book, but most importantly, keep in mind to give credit to those whose work you have used. Never ever plagiarize.