Hello, I am in the final stretch of finalising the written part of my practice-led PhD and am staring to wonder how other people handle the references. Each of my chapters is more or less a standalone essay on different aspects of my work, so I am inclined to include references I have cited in each section directly after the text (before the next section), and then have a full bibliography of all literature I have consulted at the end. Is this an acceptable format, or are there other ways people are handling their references?

Any input would be appreciated!

I've only seen people have one long reference list at the end.

yes only ever seen reference list at the end

If you were editing a book with chapters written by various authors, then the solution is easy - each one stands alone. In your situation with one author writing one thesis, I would be inclined to keep the reference list to the end. What does your supervisor say?

Have you checked if your uni has a set structure for the thesis? Mine does, and the reference list has to be at the end. But, as with others, I think it would be unusual for the references to be anywhere other than the end. Think of the examiner, they're not reading the thesis as a set of single essays, they're reading it as one body of work. I know that when I read other people's work, I often go straight to the reference list early on - to see if what they're citing highlights anything interesting for me. It would be super annoying to have to find multiple sections of references to do that....

I kept mine with reference lists in each chapter, in the sciences I think it's pretty common. My examiners must have been happy with it as the only comment I had was 'you have adequate and up-to-date references' and that was that. But yes check your Uni regulations in case they have specific instructions!