APA Guidelines – Citing Electronic Resources

Web-based resources are easy to find via your favorite search engine. For technical topics, I prefer Google but there are other good search engines. (Post comments below if you have a differing opinion!) When citing an electronic resource you must make it available to the reader of your paper so make sure the URLs provided link as close to the document as possible. It is not uncommon to provide several links to pages in the same domain so don’t try to combine all your citations into a single entry. Most importantly, make sure the links work at the time you turn in your assignment. Instructors do check these things out so make sure your information is backed up.

Although not formatted as such here, the official style guide states that the citations should be double-spaces and should have a hanging indent (no indent on first line, all subsequent lines indented). I have not been that particular in the papers I have turned in and have not received any points off yet. I, personally, do not see the value in double-spacing electronic documents but that is what the guide says. I would hope that any instructors will tell us in advance how strict they are going to be with regard to the APA style rules and I hope they do not make me post my Java code in APA style!

Web Site
This will probably be the most common resource in online classes. It is important to note, however, that not all internet resources are necessarily any good. Make sure that your resources are reliable before you use them. I will post some more on checking the quality of resources in future article. Also not that you should use one of the more specific citation formats if they apply; always supply the most information about your sources as possible to enhance your credibility.

Format:
Page Title. Retrieved <date> from <url>.

Example:
CTU Online Career Trackers – IT Consultant. Retrieved on March 1, 2005 from http://www.ctuonline.edu/main/careertrackers/it_consultant/facttracts.asp.

Internet Article Based on a Print Source
This is used if you find a web page that is a reproduction of an article originally published in print. I prefer to use these over print resources because it provides a readily available source that the reader of my paper can verify without hunting down the publication.

Format:
Author(s) (<year of publication>). <article>. <publication>, <issue>, <page>. Retrieved <date> from <url>.

Example:
Kraut, R., Olson, J., Banaji, M., Bruckman, A., Cohen, J., Couper, M. (2004). Psychological Research Online: Report of Board of Scientific Affairs' Advisory Group on the Conduct of Research on the Internet. American Psychologist, February/March 2004, 105-117. Retrieved March 1, 2005 from http://www.apa.org/journals/features/amp592105.pdf.

Electronic Versions of Print Articles
You can use this if you are using a PDF or other electronic version of a print article. If I found the electronic version on the web, however, I tend to use the Internet Article Based on a Print Source format. I would only use this if I got the article on a CD or from a paid download that others would not have access to.

Format:
Author(s) (<year of publication>). <article> [Electronic Version]. <publication>, <page>.

Example:
Drapers, Gert (2005). CLR Checklist [Electronic Version]. SQL Server Magazine, Volume 7 Number 3, 26.

Citation Dates
Note the date format used in the examples above. This is part of the APA style too so make sure your dates are in “Month d, yyyy” format meaning that the month should be spelled out and precede the day number and year. The day number should not have a leading zero (0) and the year should include all four digits.

Next Issue: Citing resources with multiple authors and maybe a start on print resource citations…