Text Formatting ⇒ Modify white Space after the Bibliography Section

[xiscom]

Hello all,

I am working in my PhD thesis and the school requires me to specify the separation between the header from the bibliography (renamed as References) and the first bibliography item (despite Latex is producing a nice array of bibitems evenly spaced along the page).

I have tried several times by using \vspace and \vspace* commands where the name for the "bibliography" is redefined as "references" and does not seem to work. Any help would be highly appreciated.

-Thanks in advance!

I am using the following code:

* MAIN DOC

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\documentclass[12pt, letterpaper]{report}

**IN STYLE FILE

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%REDEFINING CHAPTER NAMES  
\def\@makechapterhead#1{ \vspace*{0.4 in} {\parindent 0pt \centering
    \ifnum \c@secnumdepth >\m@ne \normalsize \bfseries
\@chapapp{} \thechapter
    \\  %\vspace{5mm}  
    \fi \normalsize  #1\\  $\hphantom{Xx}$ \\  \nobreak }}
\def\@makeschapterhead#1{\vspace*{1 cm} {\parindent 0pt \centering
    \normalsize  #1\par \nobreak \vskip 30pt}}

%FOR BIBLIOGRAPHY
\commentout{\renewenvironment{thebibliography}[1]
     {\chapter*{{REFERENCES}\vspace*{-0.21875in}
         \@mkboth{\REFERENCES}{REFERENCES}}%
         \renewcommand{\bibname}{REFERENCES} % change the header; 
     \clearpage
     \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{REFERENCES}
      \begin{spacing}{1.0}
\end{spacing}  
      }}

*AT THE END OF THE LAST CHAPTER, WHERE I CALL THE BIBLIOGRAPHY (I do not call it from the main document --where each chapter is called separately):

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\clearpage
\newpage
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{REFERENCES}
\begin{spacing}{1.1}
\bibliography{XXXX/Refs}
\bibliographystyle{unsrt}
\end{spacing}