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JOSEPH F. SMITH LIBRARY

Citation Help

Citing Websites/Weblogs/Emails

Web site

Web sites may be cited in running text (“On its Web site, the Evanston Public Library Board of Trustees states . . .”) instead of in an in-text citation, and they are commonly omitted from a bibliography or reference list as well. The following examples show the more formal versions of the citations. If an access date is required by your publisher or discipline, include it parenthetically at the end of the citation, as in the second example below.

N:
11. Evanston Public Library Board of Trustees, “Evanston Public Library Strategic Plan, 2000–2010: A Decade of Outreach,” Evanston Public Library, http://www.epl.org/library/strategic-plan-00.html.

B:
Evanston Public Library Board of Trustees. “Evanston Public Library Strategic Plan, 2000–2010: A Decade of Outreach.” Evanston Public Library. http://www.epl.org/library/strategic-plan-00.html (accessed June 1, 2005).

T:
(Evanston Public Library Board of Trustees)

R:
Evanston Public Library Board of Trustees. Evanston Public Library strategic plan, 2000–2010: A decade of outreach. Evanston Public Library. http://www.epl.org/library/strategic-plan-00.html.

Weblog entry or comment

Weblog entries or comments may be cited in running text (“In a comment posted to the Becker-Posner Blog on March 6, 2006, Peter Pearson noted . . .”) instead of in a note or an in-text citation, and they are commonly omitted from a bibliography or reference list as well. The following examples show the more formal versions of the citations. If an access date is required by your publisher or discipline, include it parenthetically at the end of the citation, as in the first example below.

N:
8. Peter Pearson, comment on “The New American Dilemma: Illegal Immigration,” The Becker-Posner Blog, comment posted March 6, 2006, http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2006/03/the_new_america.html#c080052 (accessed March 28, 2006).

B:
Becker-Posner Blog, The. http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/.

T:
(Peter Pearson, The Becker-Posner Blog, comment posted March 6, 2006)

R:
Becker-Posner blog, The. http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/.

E-mail message

E-mail messages may be cited in running text (“In an e-mail message to the author on October 31, 2005, John Doe revealed . . .”) instead of in a note or an in-text citation, and they are rarely listed in a bibliography or reference list. The following example shows the more formal version of a note.

N:
2. John Doe, e-mail message to author, October 31, 2005.

Item in online database

Journal articles published in online databases should be cited as shown above, under “Article in an online journal.” If an access date is required by your publisher or discipline, include it parenthetically at the end of the citation, as in the first example below.

N:
7. Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, ed. John Bostock and H. T. Riley, in the Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plin.+Nat.+1.dedication (accessed November 17, 2005).

B:
Perseus Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/.

T:
(Pliny the Elder, Perseus Digital Library)

R:
Perseus Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/.

CHICAGO/TURABIAN ONLINE STYLE GUIDES

Key

Below are some common examples of materials cited in both styles.

Humanities Style:

  • N = notes that are found in either the end-notes or the footnotes
  • B = bibliographic entries that are included at the end of the paper

Author-Date System:

  • T = in-text citation included within the work
  • R = a reference-list entry, that is again included at the end of the paper