Writing references

Electronic Sources

Electronic Books

Broadly speaking electronic books are treated just the same as printed ones. You need to give the author, the year of publication in round brackets, the title of the book in intalics, the name of the e book supplier, the word [Online] in square brackets, the phrase "available at:" and the URL, and the date accessed in round brackets.eg:

Grahame, K. (1917) The wind in the willows. Netlibrary [Online]. Available at: http://www.netlibrary.com (Accessed: 14th July 2009).

Internet Pages

The aim of recording the details of internet resources that you have used is to enable your readers to check those resources for themselves; it follows, therefore, that your citation should give them enough information to do this.

Give the author of the site, the year that the site was published or last updated in round brackets, the title of the internet site in italics, the phrase "available at:" and the URL, and finally (Accessed: date). eg:

Yau, T. (2001) Dragon Project. Available at: http://www.geocites.com/dragonproject2000/(Accessed:14 June 2005).

If the author of the web page cannot be identified you should use the web page's title. eg:

Dragon Project. Available at: http://www.geocites.com/dragonproject2000/(Accessed:14 June 2005).

Where no author or title can be identified use the web page's URL. eg:

http://www.geocites.com/dragonproject2000/(Accessed:14 June 2005).

If the web page does not have a clear date of production give the URL the phrase "no date" in round brackets and the date that you used the page. eg:

http://www.geocites.com/dragonproject2000/(no date) (Accessed:14 June 2005).

Articles in Electronic Journals

Electronic journals are usually made available through library web pages as part of a journals collection and you should mention the collection in your reference. It is important to do as as the electronic version of a journal is often different from the printed version. Give the author or the article, the year of publication in round brackets, title of the article in quotation marks, title of the journal in italics, the volume, issue and page numbers, the word "Online" in square brackets, the phrase "available at: URL of collection" and the date accessed. eg:

Bright, M.(1985) "The poetry of art," Journal of the history of ideas,46 (2), pp. 259-277 Infotrac [Online]. Available at: http://uk.infotrac.com/ (Accessed: 16 June 2005).

An increasingly large number of journals are now published solely on the internet with no printed version at all. In these cases follow the same guidelines as for electronic journals, omit the collection name and give the appropriate URL.eg:

Bright, M.(1985) "The poetry of art," Journal of the history of ideas,46 (2), pp. 259-277 [Online]. Available at: http://uk.infotrac.com/ (Accessed: 16 June 2005).

Internet-based resources are growing and changing all the time and it is impractical to list every possible source that you might use. Follow the rules given above and if you use an electronic information source which is different apply the same principles. Remember that the purpose of your reference list is to allow other people to follow up or check where you obtained your information from. So, give them enough details to do this.

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