How to Format a Web Site Footnote

Both online and hardcopy references need to be cited.

Reliable information published on government, education, newspaper, journal and industry websites provides a treasure chest of research material. Online papers, abstracts, articles, specifications and other publications need to be referenced in your footnotes just like their paper counterparts. In many cases, a publication is only available online, so there is no hardcopy reference to use. Referencing online publications is beneficial to your readers, who can quickly and easily access your reference material simply by launching a web browser. Luckily, the standard style manuals have adapted to the times and most provide guidelines for referencing online publications.

Instructions

1. Collect as much information as possible about the online publication. Make note of the author, title, URL (web address), web site name, publication date, page number and the date you accessed the publication. Online publications may be changed by the site maintainers at any time without further note, so the date you accessed the publication is important to defining the version you used for your reference. Regular HTML formatted web pages typically do not have page numbers. However, documents in PDF, Word or other document formats do have numbered pages.

2. Start your footnote with the footnote number referenced in the text. Format the number as a superscript or put a period directly after the number, depending on the footnote style you are using for your paper.

3. Write a full reference in the page footnotes the first time you reference the online publication. One popular format is:

   Author, "Title," website name, publication year, URL (access date).

   For example,

   13. Johnathan Doe, "Introduction to Widgets," Journal of Widget Science, 1999, http://widgetjournal.com/intro.html (March 2010).

   If the URL is long, use the website's home page address. Include the protocol portion of the address ("http," "ftp," "gopher," etc.) to ensure readers can properly locate the publication. Make sure you follow the specific or general format dictated by the formal writing style you are following, using the same order, punctuation and indentation.

4. Write the shortened form for the second reference in the page footnotes when making additional references to the same publication. For a regular web page, this is simply the URL of the publication. For example:

   4. http://widgetjournal.com/intro.html

   Treat the online publication as you would the print version. Online newspaper articles, journal articles and other formal publications should use the same second reference format as their hardcopy counterparts. For example, books should use the author's last name followed by the page number (e.g., "13. Smith, 45"), and news articles should use the newspaper name followed by the date (e.g., "2. Daily Sun, Mar. 14, 2010").

Tips & Warnings

• Online citation generators make easy work of constructing a proper citation. Citation generators conform to one or more formal styles. See the Resources section for free citation generators you can try.

References

• Chicago Manual of Style: Citation Quick Guide
• Long Island University: MLA Citation Style
• Oberlin College: Footnote/Endnote Citation Form by Steve Volk

Resources

• Landmarks Son of Citation Machine: Citation Generator
• EasyBib: Citation Generator