Forum Moderators: not2easy
I'm not sure of the best option so I'd be intersted in some views on this, too.
I can't remember the last time that I referenced a hard copy publication from one of our sites, so haven't got any precedence for this.
I personally dont know too much about referencing systems (other than the fact that they were forced upon me at uni and promptly forgotten!).
I assume you are writing an academic document?
The problem with applying paper based referencing systems to the web is that the sources tend to be at the bottom and most surfers wont trail up and down the page to the them.
However if you have a lot of references in a single page, then a sources list at the bottom would be a good resource.
I would use this as a general rule of thumb:
1. Only a few references (Author name, year, Site source) after the quote.
(where the site source is the title of the site and link).
2. A lot of references (standard referencing system)
Perhaps with this method you would be better to create a "sources page" for your site and when you reference in text your could have author name, year, "more info" (where more info is a link to your sources page).
3. Offline references (Author name, year, source, more info)
In this case it might be worthwhile for your visitors to compile a bibliography and link to it from the reference.
Having all your reference sources in an easy searchable page (or pages) will provide good additional content for your site, your visitors, and the search engines! :)
This is just my opinion though, maybe someone else has some experience in thhis area?
Regards
JOAT :)
If you give a link, use an anchortext that is appropriate and if possible; that contains text you would like to rank high for.
By all means mention the author. Authors have ego's and will frequently be searching for "themselves". They love their search number count (citation index) to rise. You might even find to get links back from the authors site, from a page where he/she lists all references to his/her work.
and welcome to these forums.
source: vitaplease [webmasterworld.com]
<hehehe> - now, you should have put a copyright and date there.</hehehe>
I know that there is a harvard referencing system for quoting websites, but this also depends on whether you will quote in the text, use footnotes and use a bibliography!
Try a search for the info or try a university website.
Hope this helps!
Veritysystems I liked your suggestion to
try a university website
I thought I’d try that and it didn’t take me long to find a very nice example of an online Bibliography. I used the advanced Google search through Stanford for examples of an online Bibliography. Very useful advice and a great question vbull.
The website I am working on is a professional support tool. Several parts of the site give best practice info and theory on the subject, so this is why it has drawn on other sources for content, and needs to be referenced to be credible.
Based on your feedback I think I will go with the following approach - feel free to argue it or add your ideas:
Method of referencing:
Using citations in text for direct quotes, and referencing all sources using Harvard style for web and offline sources.
Positioning of referencing:
The issue I have here is that the site is quite large and covers a lot of issues, so unless I inlude references on each page it is difficult to link a particular reference with a particular piece of content. I have already been asked the questions:
"I've read a bot of content, and I see 10 references, how do I know which one to check out first, or which one relates to which paragraph of content etc etc"
So I plan to include a list of references at the bottom of each page, with a anchor down from the top of the page.
I would like to also have a separate searchable page of all references and will work on this for the future.
What I think would be great given the non-linear nature of the web would be to have a sources page, and just link to the sources with a number or icon within the rest of the content., however I have had some resistance to this idea.
Thanks again.
Referencing on the bottom of large files such as .pdf's will mean that Google will not index the reference, if the reference is beyond the 101 kb size of the document, as I understand it.
This could be bad "publicity" for the author, whether its you or the one you are trying to credit...
on webpage size:
[webmasterworld.com...]
on Google not showing the webpage size of pdf's:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Alltheweb does show pdf's size and makes it searchable beyond 101 kb, as far as I could gather.
example: [ftc.gov...]
A search for:309. Some industry members [alltheweb.com] in Alltheweb
and the same search in Google:Some industry members [google.com]
revealing that google cannot find the last sentence of the document
(Google does have the file in its index).
The Australian Government 'Style Manual: for authors, editors and printers' is an excellent reference for these types of questions. I refer to mine nearly every day - $45 at any decent sized book store.
The convention for web site references has been covered fairly well already. The only other thing that you could add is 'date viewed', which is probably a fair point given the constant state of flux on the net.
