How to Cite / Reference This Website
I'm trying to cite this website for an astronomy project but I dont know how. Any ideas? - Question posed by RNM
There are, I understand, a number of different ways of citing/ referencing academic sources, but they all require pretty much the same information to be included. If you're not sure, the best idea would be to ask your tutor about expectations with regards to referencing and citations at your establishment.
First of all, I'm chuffed to bits that someone might find this site useful to the point that they think it's worth citing!
Second of all, for those who are wondering what 'cite' means, it's all about writing an official report, essay, project or the like: If you use something that someone else has written in one of these situations (whether that's from a book, paper or website), you should say where you got it from. This is called 'citing'. I think 'cite' would be a more American term, whereas here in the UK we'd say 'reference'.
Now, this isn't the usual kind of question I answer here, and I'm no expert on academic writing, but it is relevant and worthy of some research. ehow's How to Cite a Website article seems to agree with many other similar articles which suggest that you should include the following information:
For example, if you wanted to cite this article, you might include the following reference/ citation:
- Author's name (in Lastname, first initial format)
- Year of publication
- Title of article
- Date you read the article
- Name of the website hosting the article
- Full URL of the web page being cited
Briggs, T. (2009) How to cite/ reference this website, retrieved 06/03/2011 from the Blogstronomy website http://blogstronomy.blogspot.com/2009/11/will-planets-align-in-2012.htmlBut don't quote me on that...
There are, I understand, a number of different ways of citing/ referencing academic sources, but they all require pretty much the same information to be included. If you're not sure, the best idea would be to ask your tutor about expectations with regards to referencing and citations at your establishment.
This makes me happy that some people do try and cite/reference the information they find on the internet. Teaching university students predominantly consists of repeatedly showing them how to reference information properly.
ReplyDeleteIt is worth noting that there are a couple of good bits of software to help with this.
Endnote is a paid for program that you can enter information all you documents/sites into and it will format your references to the style you choose.
Zotero is free piece of software that does the same thing, and works as a Firefox plug-in with Microsoft Word or Open office. What's even better than you with one click on websites etc it will load all the information items you list above into its database.
Thanks for the info, Jen!
ReplyDeleteanother good way to cite is with easybib.com
ReplyDeletemany colleges use either MLA or turbian
Easy bib will do MLA for free but turbian costs a bit i think (never had to use it)
also if you (the author of this) thinks that you have a lot of traffic you should also try to cite your own docs. if anything put a list of the places you use (websites, interviews, movies, etc) at the bottom of the page. This way people will be able to say to their teachers that you are a legitimate source because you cite your articles.