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Documenting Electronic Sources

This resource was written by Purdue OWL.
Last full revision by Dana Lynn Driscoll.
Last edited by Allen Brizee on September 30th 2008 at 3:25PM

Summary: This handout contains links to sources which will help students, teachers, and anybody doing research on the Internet to cite electronic sources using different styles. We also have links to some of our OWL handouts about citing sources.

Jump to listing of all of this resource's sections

Documenting Sources: Overview

The Internet and other digital sources of information are widely used tools for research, but since they are still relatively new tools, various disciplines are still deciding what the correct way to document electronic sources is, and disciplines are constantly changing their minds as to what the most appropriate ways are.

To ensure accuracy, it's always best to consult the style manual and/or accompanying website for your discipline first before consulting other sources. We have a complete list of style manuals on our resources for documenting sources in the disciplines page, which also provides links to general information about documenting print sources (and in some cases, electronic sources). Other ways to determine the style you should use are to ask your instructor for guidelines or resources, or to locate the official website for publications in your discipline and see if they have any guidelines or style manuals available.

This resource contains links to sources that will help students, teachers, and anybody doing research on the Internet to cite electronic sources using different styles. We also have links to some of our OWL handouts on citing sources.

All Sections in Documenting Electronic Sources:

  1. Documenting Sources: Overview
  2. Documenting Electronic Sources in Specific Disciplines
  3. Online Guides to Citing Electronic Sources
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