Citing Reference Materials

By: khakang |

Here is a guide to how to properly cite online research materials:

An Article in an Online Scholarly Journal

Example:

Wheelis, Mark. “Investigating Disease Outbreaks Under a Protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.” Emerging Infectious Diseases 6.6 (2000): 33 pars. 8 May 2006 http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol6no6/wheelis.htm>.

Online scholarly journals must include:

  • Author
  • Article title
  • Journal name
  • Volume and issue information when available
  • Paragraph or page numbers when available
  • Date of Access
  • URL of the article

Source:

Stolley, Karl. “MLA Formatting and Style Guide.” The OWL at Purdue. 10 May 2006. Purdue University Writing Lab. 12 May 2006 <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/09/>.

Citing an Entire Web Site

Example:

The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. 26 Aug. 2005. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue University. 11 Sept. 2007. http://owl.english.purdue.edu.

Basic Format Includes:

  • Name of Site
  • Date of Posting
  • Name of Institution/Organization Affiliated with the Site (Sometime in Copyright Info.)
  • Date You Accessed the Site
  • URL of the Site

Source:

Stolley, Karl. “MLA Formatting and Style Guide.” The OWL at Purdue. 10 May 2006. Purdue University Writing Lab. 12 May 2006 <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/09/>.

Page on a Web Site

Examples:

“Caret.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 28 April 2006. 10 May 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caret>.

“How to Make Vegetarian Chili.” eHow.com. 10 May 2006 <http://www.ehow.com/
how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html>.

Stolley, Karl. “MLA Formatting and Style Guide.” The OWL at Purdue. 10 May 2006. Purdue University Writing Lab. 12 May 2006 <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/09/>.

  • Cite as you would the entire website
    Include URL of the exact page you are referring to:
    Author when available


An Image or Photograph

Example (taken from Webshots.com, and online photosharing site. “brandychloe” is a username):

brandychloe. Great Horned Owl Family. 22 May 2006 <http://image46.webshots.com/
47/7/17/41/347171741bgVWdN_fs.jpg>.

For online images, cite as you would any other Web page, but make sure you’re crediting the original creator of the image. The above example links directly to the image; but we could also provide the user’s profile URL, and give the path for reaching the image, e.g.

brandychloe. Great Horned Owl Family. 22 May 2006 <http://community.webshots.com/user/brandychloe>. Path: Albums; birds; great horned owl family.

Doing so helps others verify information about the images creator, where as linking directly to an image file, like a JPEG (.jpg) may make verification difficult or impossible.

Source:

Stolley, Karl. “MLA Formatting and Style Guide.” The OWL at Purdue. 10 May 2006. Purdue University Writing Lab. 11 Sept 2007 <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/09/>.

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