The last reference is to a document found on a Web site. The format is the same as for an unpublished report, except that the date when the information was retrieved is given, followed by the name of the site, and its address. No punctuation is used at the end of the reference. Formats for references to other electronic sources, such as electronic journals or newsletters, are described on the site of the American Psychological Association.

Refining your list of references

Your set of note cards will change from day-to-day as you drop some sources and add others. Some references will lead to additional, useful information; others will not. As you work through your original and new references, you will also be coming closer to the end of the literature review phase of your project.   Before stopping, consider browsing in the book collection of your university library.

Browsing is easy because books on the same subject are placed together on library shelves. When you find a reference to a book clearly related to your research question, go to the book's location (given by its call number) and examine the titles of nearby books. You might find additional books that are useful as well. To save time, start by examining the indexes at the back of the book. Look for topics that relate to your interest.

With a slight variation, browsing can also be applied to journals. When you find that several valuable articles came from the same journal, examine other issues of that journal. You may find additional valuable articles. With journals, scan the pages of contents to identify titles of articles that grab your attention, and then read each article you select critically.

Creating a list of references

As you finish your review of literature, you will have a pile of note cards with references to publications and possibly Web sites from which you took information. As part of your report, you will need to covert the references you created on your note cards to a list of references for your report. To create this list, place the references in alphabetical order according to the last names of the authors and create a list with the full reference to each publication or source of information you mention in your report. For an example of how this is done, click on References and look at the references we cite.

Searching Internet sources

We have added this section on searching the Internet because of its increasing importance to researchers.

Understanding the Internet and Web sites

The terms Internet and Web sites are often used to describe the same thing, but, technically, they refer to different things. The Internet is the set of connections and common means for linking users to Web sites throughout the world. The Web sites contain the information one can access through the communications and linkages provided by the partners who make up the Internet. Today, Web sites are maintained by most major organizations, including universities, research centers, government ministries, professional organization, international organizations, and businesses. The ever-increasing numbers of Web sites offer information on almost any topic you can think of. Because of the growing importance of Web sites as a source of research information, researchers routinely check Web sites for information. If you have access to the Internet, we recommend you include a Web search as part of your literature review.

Web site addresses

Each Web site has a unique address referred to as its Universal Resource Locator or URL. In the beginning, the addresses for all Web sites began with "www," which stands for the World Wide Web. Now, many Web sites do not include the "www" prefix; instead, they begin with some short version or the initials of the name of the organization sponsoring the site. For example, the Web address for the World Bank is www.worldbank.org while that for the Ahfad University for Women, in Omdurman, Sudan, is http://ahfad.org. You will see Web addresses in both forms with various sets of letters and numbers.   Also, you may see Web address set off by with a set of arrowheads, < and >. These are not part of the addresses; they are used to set an address off from any text around the address. Also, Web addresses may end in a variety of ways. Some may include the letters "html," but others may have only "htm" or some other ending. Be sure to note the full and exact address of any site you see and wish to return to; otherwise, you will have difficulty returning to it.