Referencing Styles

A guide to the reference styles used at the University of St Andrews

What you need to include:

The Chicago Manual of Style recommends that you approach webpages in the same way as you would any print resources.  For online books and journal articles, see the Referencing a Book or Referencing a Journal Article pages.

The general principle of providing the information someone would need to find the resource should be applied.  This would include author, title of the specific page, a description if the title is vague, and the URL. 

Include a date published, or updated.  If this can't be found add a date accessed to the bibliography.

The footnote or endnote format is:

Note number. Author's surname OR Organisation, Short Title.

The entry in a bibliography format is:

Surname, First Name or Organisation. "Title of page". Date updated or amended or published, or date accessed in the format Month, Day, Year. URL

Footnote / endnote format:

Google, "Algorythms".

Bibliography format:

Google. "Algorythms."  Google Inside Search. Accessed August 9, 2021, https://www.google.co.uk/insidesearch/howsearchworks/algorithms.html

Screenshot of example Google search

 

Ensure you include all the punctuation required in your reference.

Footnote / endnote:

  • Include the footnote number
  • Include the author surname(s), applying the advice in the Author Rules tab
  • Include a shortened title for webpage.

​Bibliography:

  • If you can identify the author, include this
  • For multiple authors follow the advice in the Author Rules tab
  • The webpage title is not italicised, but is included within quotation marks
  • Give a date of publication or updated, if this can't be found give the date accessed,  in the format of Month Day, Year, e.g. November 21, 2014
  • Provide the URL for the specific page you are referencing.