Reference Services of Princeton University Library

CITING SPECIAL FORMATS:

Electronic Publications, Government Documents, and Law

April 2004

Within the academic and research world, citation can be said to have as its twin goals attribution and credibility.  In many cases a general citation guide will serve in an entirely appropriate way to accomplish those aims.  Four that are often used on the Princeton campus today are the Chicago Manual of Style, (15th ed. 2003), the MLA Handbook (6th ed. 2003), Turabian, (6th ed. 1996), and APA (5th ed. 2002).  

However, electronic publications, government documents, and law are three special cases which often benefit from being treated with the guidance of special style manuals.  This is most clearly evident when the basic style manual does not cover the particular case of the item in special format being cited.  However, even when a reference can be created by using the paterns of a basic handbook, citation can be strengthened by seeking the guidance of special manuals.  This is especially true in consideration of an underlying goal of citation - that being able to locate the actual material being referenced.


Electronic Citation Style
Electronic format can be a re-publication of something issued previously in paper format, or else is "Born Digital", that is, always and only existing in electronic form.  In either case, describing the electronic layer carefully, including information on third party and inhouse electronic distribution services, and dating when the item was Viewed are essential.  

Please note that one point of contention in electronic citation is how exact the reference should be to a particular electornic site.  That is - should the citation be a simple statement following the description of the item being referenced?  For example, "Viewed on April 21, 2004 in the New York Times file of Lexis Academic Universe at http://web.lexis-nexis.com ." Or,  should the actual url be cited, even if it is long, complex, and not directly accessible?  

Online guides to electronic citation have the advantage of being updated as rapidly as shifts in the world of electroinc publishing. Guides to electronic citation which may be especially  include those below.  Note that there are particular guides among them designed to work with one of the general style manuals such as those noted above.  They will aid to more completely describe electronic content used to prepare and support research and scholarship, even while keeping to the basic citation format.
 

  • Basic Electronic Style by Janice Walker from the Columbia Guide to Online Style. 
  • Citing Cyberspace by James D. Lester for the Longman English Website. 
  • Citing Online Sourcesfrom the Linguist .
  • Comparison Citation Tables from Duke University Library. 
  • The English Pages Citation Guide by Janice Walker for the Longman English Website. 
  • Karla's Guide to Citation Manuals, electronic style based on MLA, APA, Chicago, Turabian, and other style manuals. 
  • Citation Style Guides for Internet and Electronic Sources from the University of Alberta. 
  • Citation Guides for Electronic Documents from IFLA.



    • Citing Government Documents 
    Government Documents, sometimes called Public Documents, present particular challenges in creating clear and unambigious references.  As Turabian states 
    The form used for citing public documents should make them readily accessible to anyone iwshing to locate them in standard indexes, information services, and libraries. (1996, p. 215)
    To accomplish this end, it is often best to explore the advice given by whatever general style manual is being used to create references.  There is considerable variation among those in terms of how exactly government documents can be described.  Turabian gives some 24 pages of patterns and examples, Chicago some 20 pages, while MLA and APA vary among types of documents being described.   There are, however, two problems in using just a basoc style manual for government documents. 

    The first is that the particular type of document may be not be well represented.  Most of these manuals focus on U.S. documents, with only slight coverage for state and provincial and for other countries - and very slight coverage to United Nations and other international documents.   But beyond that obvious concern, there is a more fundamental problem that the description is unlikely to be framed to give a solid foundation to identify and to find again that document.  For those reasons, it would be wise to consult the standard citation manual for government documents, and use that in conjunction with the main general style manual for the research. 

    This manual, sponsored by the Government Documents Roundtable of the American Library Association, is the Complete Guide to Citing Government Information Resources, ( 2d ed. 1993).  It is held in the Geology Library and in the Social Science Reference Center on A Floor of Firestone Library.  (The 3rd Edition - 2003, has been ordered.)

    The Blue Book noted below also describes in exact detail a number of government documents, and can also be useful.  But citations found here may be stated in so much detail as to be unclear to a person untrained in law.  


    Citing Laws, Legislation and other Legal Materials
    Legal citation required a particular format which is commonly agreed upon by those in the legal community, whether scholars or those in the practice of law or the judiciary.  Fortunately, the special case of legal citation is thoroughly covered in the Blue Book Uniform System of Citation, (17th ed. 2000), and in related resources:

    Comments and suggestions on this topic are always welcome. 
    Last modified: April  20, 2004 by sbwhite@princeton.edu