Citing Internet Sources

 

            The internet is a great place for finding information.  There are many useful, and not so useful, sources on the internet for students to use for researching an endless amount of topics.  The problem arises when it becomes abused, and the information becomes scrambled from many different sources.  We have grown up learning how to cite information from text, but the internet makes it a little more difficult since some of the information needed isn’t as easily displayed. 

            There are two main types of formatting used to cite internet pages.  First, there is the America Psychological Association (APA).  The APA style is pretty much cut and dry.  It is a good style to use in citing web pages.  However, after reviewing the websites regarding citing using the APA style, I don’t think that it would be useful in teaching high school students.  I think that using the Modern Language Association (MLA) style of citing would be more efficient in teaching high school students how to cite information on the web.  After reviewing the websites which describe the two different styles, I believe that The Write Source would be the most appropriate way to teach high school students how to properly cite resources on the web.  The Write Source describes how to cite information in a friendly way.  The other cites seemed very “dry” and hard to follow compared to this cite.  I would use the following cite for my students:

The Write Source

 

http://www.thewritesource.com/mla.htm

 

Last visited:  2/26/05

 

MLA Format Examples

 

Salwen, Peter.  “The Quotable Mark Twain”.  [Online].  20, May, 1996

<http://salwen.com/mtquotes.htm l

 

United States Government.  Central Intelligence Agency.  “The World Factbook: Afghanistan.” [Online]. 10 February, 2005.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/af.html

 

NASCAR.  2003 Winston Cup Series Drivers. [Online] 26, February 2005

http://www.nascar.com/drivers/list/wc/dps/

 

McKenzi, Jamie.  “Building Good New Ideas.”  From Now On Vol. 10. Issue 9 (2001). 26 February 2004

http://fno.org/jun01/building.html