SUGGESTIONS FOR CITING AND REFERENCING
WEB SOURCES
FOR GEOSCIENCE PAPERS

To reference files from the World Wide Web, the following basic form is suggested:

BASIC FORM:
Author, Initials, Year, Title: URL (date web site visited).

INDIVIDUAL AUTHOR:
Forge, K, 1997, Lake Missoula strandlines: A survey of Quaternary terrace formations in the conterminous U.S.: http://www.emporia.edu/earthsci/student/forge/missou.htm (10 February 1997).

INSTITUTIONAL AUTHOR:
U.S. Geological Survey, 1997, USGS - Water Resources of Washington State: http://wwwdwatcm.wr.usgs.gov/wrd-home.html (9 February 1997).

To determine the title of a web page, go to "View" on the toolbar, and then "Page Source" and look at the Title. Sometimes you can use this. If it doesn't seem to fit the page, you will have to do your best to figure out the appropriate title from the page heading(s). You will need to decide whether the page you are citing seems to be part of a complete work. This may be difficult to determine. The page you are on may provide a back button. If not, you might try this: click in the address bar at the top of the screen, erase back to the next slash (/), and go to that page. You may need to go back several pages to find the "home page" of the complete work.

EXAMPLE:
Milwaukee Public Museum, no date, The interior of the Earth: The third planet: http://www.mpm.edu/exhibit/third/tp2.html (5 February 1997).

The following are examples of citing web resources:

According to Forge (1997), the city of Missoula is built on a lacustrine terrace of Lake Missoula.

Real-time stream flow data is available via the web (U.S. Geological Survey, 20 Oct. 1997).

Seismic waves change as they move through fluids and solids (Milwaukee Public Museum, no date).


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