Re: How would you cite a site?

[Isabelle Delalande <toundra -at- M3ISYSTEMS -dot- QC -dot- CA>]

>I'm putting together a internal report which draws information from a
>number of web sites.  I'd like to include a bibliography.  Which leads me
>to my question... is there an accepted way to cite a web site?

>Or, can you help me fake one?

This is what I found in an old (one year old) alt.useage.english FAQ:

The standard format for a Web citation is:

<author's name> <title of document> <<URL>> <date of document> (Accessed
<date accessed>)

1. Use the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) to identify the source of the
material, as specified in RFC1738.  This begins with a code for the type of
access involved ("http://";, "ftp://";, "gopher://";, etc.).  The appendix to
RFC1738 suggests that URLs in citations should be prefixed with "URL:" and
surrounded by angle brackets; for example:
        <URL:http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/bardhtml>
        However, including the "URL:" prefix seems ugly and unnecessary, as the
angle brackets and access code suffice to identify the code as a URL.

2. If the accessed document is dated internally, use that date for the
citation.  If there is no date given, use the date at which it was first
accessed (prefixed by "Accessed" in parentheses, as shown above).
Optionally, give both (for example, if you have any reason to think the
document may have been amended since its first creation).

3. Give filenames as you first encountered them, including suffixes
indicating compressed format, such as "gz" or "zip".

4. Take care to preserve case in network server directories and filenames,
as it is usually significant.

5. You may break URLs across lines, but if possible arrange for breaks to
occur only at punctuation separators (but not on hyphens, and don't ever add
hyphens).

-------
They gave the following sources:

Barrett, Alan <barrett -at- lucy -dot- ee -dot- und -dot- ac -dot- za> "MLA citation style for internet
documents?" Article <3phppu$t6k -at- lucy -dot- ee -dot- und -dot- ac -dot- za> in Usenet newsgroup
alt.usage.english, 19 May 1995.

Berners-Lee, T., Masinter, L. & McCahill, M. [ed.] "Uniform Resource
Locators (URL)" Request for Comments 1738, Network Working Group
<ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/doc/rfc/rfc1738.txt> Dec. 1994.  (Accessed 3 Feb.
1995)

Chicago Manual of Style: For Authors, Editors and Copywriters (14th
edition), University of Chicago Press, 1995, ISBN-0-226-10389-7, pp.  633-4.

Gibaldi, Joseph & Achert, Walter E. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research
Papers (Revised Fourth Edition), Modern Language Association of America, May
1995, ISBN 0-87352-565-5, pp. 160-67, 176-78.

Horton, M. & Adams, R. "Standard for interchange of USENET messages" Request
for Comments 1036, Network Working Group <ftp://ftp.demon.co.
uk/pub/doc/rfc/rfc1036.txt> Dec. 1987 (Accessed 19 June 1995).

Johnson, Floyd H. "Suggested MLA Style Guide" <ftp://ftp.netins.net/
showcase/nwc-iowa/pub/int-refs.txt> 1995 (Accessed 17 Apr. 1995).

Wainwright, Mark <markw -at- harlqn -dot- co -dot- uk> "MLA citation style for internet
documents?" Article <D8Gv79 -dot- IMB -at- harlequin -dot- co -dot- uk> in Usenet newsgroup alt.
usage.english, 12 May 1995.

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