Follow the correct format

Consult a writing handbook or your teacher's guidelines for the general format of your report. The discipline within which you are reporting determines the style.

The format for reporting electronic sources has been evolving-- parallel to the popularity of the Internet and more particularly that of the World Wide Web for research.

The most important guideline is that the reader of your paper should be able to find your source, or if it's a source that may have been modified (or deleted), that you identify the date of your reading.

Electronic sources are of two types--those that change (such as a Web site or a regularly updated on-line resource) and those that do not (such as a computer program or a portable database stored on a CD-ROM).

It is essential to provide the date of your access to a source that may have been subsequently updated. If you are uncertain about what kind of source you are using, give the date you viewed it.

Mailing lists use different addresses: the posting address (where the article first appeared) and the retrieval address (where the reader of your paper would have to go to read the article). You will need to list both.

Note that you may have found most of your sources of information electronically, but you probably read most of them in print. Printed sources will be presented according to the existing guidelines for your discipline. Unless told to do so, do not separate your sources by type (books, articles, E-mail, CD-ROMs, etc.).