From owner-cse663-fa08-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Mon Oct 27 19:34:37 2008 Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:30:45 -0400 From: "William J. Rapaport" Subject: 663: Citing Websites To: CSE663-FA08-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: Citing Websites ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In your term-project reports, some of you may be tempted to cite the CVA website or the SNePS website. It's perfectly fine to have a footnote somewhere pointing readers to these websites, but a reference list at the end of a professional article should not cite a website, only a publication (in a journal, book, etc.). A minor "exception" to this is that if a paper is unpublished and only appears on someone's website, then you can list that website as you would normally list the publication or publisher of a published paper. One reason for this is that websites are not "archival"; they change too frequently or can disappear. Another is that they are not "peer-reviewed". Granted, my CVA website (which, by the way is mine, not Kibby's (look at who has the copyright to see who the "author" of a website is)) and the SNePS website are "legitimate", but it's often hard to tell about the legitimacy of other websites, whereas published papers at least have the imprimatur of a journal or publisher. That said, if you do feel that you need to cite a website(*), be sure to give its: author (if possible) copyright date (if possible) title URL date that you accessed it ======================================================================== (*) And, by the way, please be careful to distinguish between: cite (a verb meaning to quote as evidence) site (a noun meaning a location) sight (a noun meaning vision) :-)