Expanded Reference Guide

4.8. Online and Electronic Sources

The method of citation for electronic resources follows the model for print publications. Electronic citations are troubling because the internet does not offer stable, finished editions (changes to web-sites may be made incrementally and frequently). If using an on-line full-text database, always refer to the stable URL.

Information – as much as is available – should be given in the following order:

1. Author’s name

2. Title of item

3. Title of complete work/resource

4. Publication details (volume, issue, date)

5. Full web address (Universal Resource Locator (URL)) in angle brackets

6. Date at which the resource was consulted (in square brackets)

7. Location of passage cited (in parentheses, in most intelligible form).

You will encounter websites with substantially fewer details than this (many sites are anonymous, untitled, and provide no publication information). If you encounter such a site, ask yourself first whether it is an appropriate resource to be citing in your work. If you determine it is, provide as many of the above details as you can, as well as any other details which would help your reader to track down your source.

Online Book

(either an electronic text of a printed book or a book-length electronic publication such as a hypertext fiction)

1. Geoff Ryman, Two Five Three: A Novel for the Internet, April 1999 <http://www.ryman-novel.com/>; [accessed 9 July 2000], (Car 4 passengers).

 

Online articles

1. Clara Tuite, ‘Cloistered Closets: Enlightenment Pornography, The Confessional State, Homosexual Persecution and The Monk’, Romanticism On the Net, 8 (November 1997) <http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/1997/v/n8/005766ar.html>; [accessed 2 August 2008], (section II).

2. 'WG Sebald (1944-2001)', Guardian Unlimited <http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,,-195,00.html>; [accessed 12 December 2006].

3. Ivan Keta, '“The Hitchcock Film to End All Hitchcock Films”: Intertextuality and the Nature of the World in North by Northwest', Common Room, 15.1 (2012), <http://departments.knox.edu/engdept/commonroom/Volume15.1/Ivan_Keta.html>; [accessed 31 August 2012] (para. 2).

4. Catherine Price, '"Mom Lit" is Born', Salon.com (19 December 2006) < http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2006/12/19/mom_lit/index.html>; [accessed 22 December 2006].

 

Online databases

1. Emily Dickinson, ‘A Light Exists in Spring’, in Literature Online <http://lion.chadwyck.co.uk> [accessed 17 October 2012].

2. George Lyttelton, Dialogues of the Dead (London: W. Sandby, 1760), p. 45, in Googlebook <http://books.google.com/>; [accessed 12 August 2008].

Note:

• A digital facsimile of a printed edition should include a full reference to the relevant print edition 

Personal web-sites

1. Brycchan Carey, ‘Ignatius Sancho Homepage’ <http://www.brycchancarey.com/ sancho/index.htm> [accessed 10 July 2002].

2. Stephen Alsford, 'History of Medieval Lynn: Origins and Early Growth', Medieval English Towns (2012) <http://users.trytel.com/~tristan/towns/lynn1.html>; [accessed 31 August 2012] (para. 4).

Citations from E-Book Readers (such as Kindle etc)

The department suggests that tablet e-book editions (such as for Kindle) do not offer a good basis for scholarship, and does not recommend using them in assessed work. However, if for some reason you need to cite an e-book edition, include the format and any page locator information provided with it (a section title or a chapter or other number, such as location or percentage). Eg:

1. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (New York: Penguin, 2007), Kindle edn, location 2684.