Guide to Comparative Politics on the Internet

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8. REFERENCING WEBSITES AND AVOIDING PLAGIARISM

Whenever you incorporate material of any kind from a website into your own work, you are expected to reference your source. If you fail to do this, you are guilty of plagiarism – passing off the work of others as if it were your own.

So how should websites be referenced? The essential point is to give all the information needed for the reader to find your source. Compared to books and articles in paper form, websites change rapidly and are accessed through a specific internet address. Accordingly, references to websites should include both the date of access and the full internet address, in addition to the source and where possible a title (Stein, 2003, p. 22).

Recommended MLA format:

Surname, first name, ‘full title’, date of document (if available). Full web address (date accessed).

Example:

Norris, Pippa, ‘Electoral Engineering: Voting Rules and Political Behaviour’. Spring 2004. Pippa Norris website. (April 4, 2007)

An alternative format:

Author (year) ‘full title’ (full web address). Date accessed.

Example:

Supreme Court of Canada (2004) ‘The Court’s Jurisidiction’ ( http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/AboutCourt/role/index_e.asp). Accessed April 4, 2007.

If you are submitting your work electronically, you can use the ‘insert hyperlink’ command to add a link.