CONTENTS:
Citing the Web

• Bedford St. Martin's Citation Styles
• APAStyle.org
• MLA.ORG
• Formatting Your Bibliography (MLA Handbook Style)
• Writer's Handbook
• Turabian Citation and Format Style Guide
• Columbia Guide to On-line Style
• Uncle Sam - Brief Guide to Citing Government Publications

CITING THE WEB

The flow of information from the Web into research documents is constant now. Sometimes we analyze and summarize information. Sometimes the information we find is perfect just as it is written. To leave readers with the impression that we wrote those Web passages, however, amounts to plagiarism. It is essential to cite those passages. On a practical note, citing all the sources used in a profile reduces our work load. When a profile update is due, a good bibliography saves you from revisiting old sources. Development officers can access the Web sites listed directly if they want to see the full text.

There are several bibliographic styles which can be used for prospect research purposes. The four most commonly used are: Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA), Chicago Manual of Style and the Council of Biology Editors (CBE). Those of you who have suffered through term papers are probably familiar with Kate Turabian's seminal book, in which citation styles are based on the Chicago Manual. If it helps to know, APRA Connections uses the Chicago Manual of Style format. Here are some sites that can help you decide what works for you. CBE is not covered since it is most appropriate to scientific papers.

BEDFORD ST. MARTIN'S CITATION STYLES

Bedford St. Martin's is a college publisher specializing in the humanities, which naturally gives them a special interest in getting citations right. They offer specific examples and directions for citing electronic formats according to the MLA, APA and Chicago style guides. They also offer examples the for CBE style. The explanations are nicely done and the examples are helpful and thorough.

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/citex.html

APASTYLE.ORG

Of course, if you want to be sure you are getting it right, go to the source. APA offers a Web site with excerpts about electronic citations from the new 5th edition of the Publication Manual. They promise to "update this page regularly as there are additions, changes, or clarifications to APA style," a good reason to use this site as your baseline. They explain the basic forms and components of electronic references and give examples. For citations of text, use

http://www.apastyle.org/electext.html

APA Style offers more precise examples of how to cite other types of electronic resources at

http://www.apastyle.org/elecsource.html

MLA.ORG

This site offers much less help than the APA site. On the main page, click on MLA Style in the side bar, then Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), which answer such posers as the number of spaces after periods, use of underline vs. italics and citing a Web source without page numbers. There is a brief overview of MLA guidelines for Web source citations with one example per citation type. The Bedford St. Martin's site offers better detail.

http://www.mla.org/

FORMATTING YOUR BIBLIOGRAPHY (MLA HANDBOOK STYLE)

Wow, a ready-made template using the MLA style for bibliographies. Thank you Jeff Marx Books. Download the file, which provides the template, which is in rich-text format, instructions and citation examples. Find hot-links to other MLA style sites.

http://www.schoolelection.com/bibliographies/

WRITER'S HANDBOOK

University of Wisconsin, Madison, presents traditional examples of the Chicago Style (we do still use hard-copy, right?) on the Chicago Manual of Style.

http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocChicago.html

The site also details the format for including notes (footnotes) at the bottom of a page and how to lay out a works cited (bibliography) page. For electronic citations, they refer you to the Chicago Manual of Style FAQ Web site (http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq.html), which I thought was not terribly informative.

TURABIAN CITATION AND FORMAT STYLE GUIDE

Bucknell offers a detailed style guide a la Kate Turabian, covering both hard-copy and electronic formats. There are also links to other Turabian style guides. If this is the style you remember from college and want to refresh your memory, this is the site for you. The URL takes you directly to a PDF document, so you will need the Adobe Acrobat program to open it.

http://www.isr.bucknell.edu/research/turabian.pdf

COLUMBIA GUIDE TO ON-LINE STYLE

Columbia University Press has a basic guide that gives examples for citing a number of electronic sources, including File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Telnet and gopher sources. The guide offers two styles for each source: Humanities, which they define as including MLA and Chicago Manual of Style, and Scientific, under which APA and CBE are grouped.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos/idx_basic.html

UNCLE SAM - BRIEF GUIDE TO CITING GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS

Check this page for a very few examples of how to cite government documents in electronic format.

http://www.lib.memphis.edu/gpo/citeweb.htm

Chris Mildner and Pamela J. Smith

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