\begin{thebibliography}{widest-label}
\bibitem[label]{cite_key}
literature citation ...
....
\end{thebibliography}
The thebibliography environment produces a bibliography or reference
list. In the article style, this reference list is labeled
"References"; in the report style, it is labeled "Bibliography".
widest-label is text that, when printed, is approximately as wide
as the widest item label produced by the \bibitem command.
The thebibliography environment is similar to the
enumerate environment, except that
items are associated with a \bibitem
command and can be cross-referenced with the
\cite command.
An example
In the text you generate a reference to the bibliographic list as follows:
... In the running text you might want to refer to
Dow & Jones\cite{DandJ} and then again you
might not ...
The \cite
command will produce a sequence number by default,
or the text from the optional label argument of
\bibcite; this latter is useful
if the style is to use, for example,
the first three letters of the author's last name and a year, as in Dow29.
The associated item in the bibliography section at the end of the
article would be generated by
\begin{thebibliography}{99}
....
\bibitem{DandJ} Dow, W. \& Jones, E.A.,
{\it Wall Street Journal},
March 29, 1929.
....
\end{thebibliography}
Note that the widest-label parameter has been set assuming less than
100 numbered items in the bibliography. Also note that the key,
DandJ, is what connects the \cite
and \bibitem.
If label is omitted, the numbers are generated sequentially by
the \bibitem commands. Many journals
want these in order of appearance in the text, so you have to sort this
list to the proper order.