When I format my bibliography, the font size changes from 12 to 11 and I have to change it back. It does this every time when I use Times 12 font (a very common choice), but oddly not when using some other sizes and font faces.
The bibliography takes on the attributes of the immediately surrounding text. It is fairly common for documents to have accumulated little areas of the document with no text which nonetheless have a different style than the one which you see in your visible text. The solution is therefore to ensure that the area surrounding the bibliography has the style you wish.
Try selecting text from (and including) your last paragraph to the area after your bibliography and applying your style. Your bibliography should then retain that style when you format it. After this, you can switch back your bibliography heading to the desired formatting.
Yeah, I tried that, but it still changes it to 11. Only with some fonts, though. I use Times 12 in my text and regardless of the text just before the bibliography, it inserts the bibliography at font size 11.
Jan 2020 it still does it with Palatino 12, changing the bibliography to 11.
This happens to me every time I format citations. In every single essay/chapter. It shrinks them to 11pt font. I’ve set my normal paragraph type to be 12 pt TNR, and my entire paper uses 12 pt TNR. There’s no logical reason they always revert, but yet they do.
Did anyone ever work out a legit fix for this? Mine is doing it now too - very frustrating.
Welcome to our forum, @Drew_Germaine. Is this happening in Word or Google Docs? In Google Docs, are you formatting via the Paperpile menu in the document’s top ribbon (generated by the browser extension), or with our optional sidebar add-on? Trying the one you’re not using could be a workaround. Have you tried citing and formatting in other documents (to see if the same happens)? If that works, copy and paste the contents to a new doc and try formatting there.
Hey Suzanne,
It’s happening in Google Docs.
I tried looking in the settings of both the menu and sidebar - is there something particular I should be ticking here? Seems there are no settings for font size?
Drew 
Thank you for following up here, @Drew_Germaine. Generating the reference list with either the Google Docs plugin or the sidebar add-on should automatically use the selected font size in the document, so there is nothing specific to select. Have you tried copying and pasting the text into another document and tried formatting the reference list there to see if it works?