You see before you the Web site for the third edition of Online!—the bestselling pocket guide to using Internet sources. Whether you're a student, a teacher, or an online writer and researcher, you'll find answers to your Internet questions in Online! We've kept the coverage that made the first two editions so popular:

• Help finding, using, and evaluating Internet sources
• Models for citing and documenting Internet sources in the MLA, APA, CBE, and Chicago styles
• Tips for publishing on the Internet and the World Wide Web
• A directory of Internet sources in the major academic disciplines

• The very latest (1999) MLA and APA guidelines for citing Internet sources
• New material on ethics and netiquette, including more coverage of acknowledging sources and avoiding plagiarism
• A new chapter on distance learning, with practical tips for succeeding as an online learner
• Guidelines for composing MLA-, APA-, Chicago-, and CBE-style hypertext essays, with complete sample papers
• A handy FAQ section
• Help citing online sources in other documentation styles

We have also taken care to update all Internet sources, incorporate the latest advances in technology, and recommend research and writing strategies that encourage responsible and effective use of the Internet.

In working on this edition, we have marveled at how far the field of citation has come since early 1996, when we began work on the first edition of our book. At that time we were trying to provide good answers to our students' questions about citing and documenting Internet sources. After reading everything we could find on using the Internet for research purposes and examining every documentation style sheet and manual available, we drafted a set of guidelines for citing Internet sources MLA-style and presented them at several professional conferences in Kentucky. We then published "Beyond the MLA Handbook: Documenting Electronic Sources on the Internet" in Kairos: A Journal for Teaching Writing in Webbed Environments 1.2 (1996). That essay identified four areas of citation practice needing improvement and offered an MLA-style guide. Within days, our email boxes were flooded with requests for permission to reprint and distribute these guidelines. Enter Edith Trost, from Bedford/St. Martin's, who asked whether we would consider expanding our essay into a textbook. We would indeed—and Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources was born.

Since then, the Modern Language Association has written its own official style for citing Internet sources, and the American Psychological Association has begun to do so as well. We're pleased to present the styles of these two organizations in Chapters 5 and 6. We're even more pleased to be part of an ongoing-indeed, an expanding-scholarly conversation about documentation and its important implications.

We've tried to make Online! the latest word on working with Internet sources—but we know that it's the latest word as of January 2000. And we know as well that it won't be long before new kinds of Internet sources emerge, bringing new questions. We hope this site, and the book, will be practical and useful—helpful harbors for all who navigate the Internet.


To all who have helped us prepare Online! we give our thanks and appreciation. We especially want to acknowledge the help of Mick Doherty, the editor of Kairos, for encouraging us to publish the initial essay, and Janice Walker, for her generous response to that essay. We gratefully salute the staff of Eastern Kentucky University's Academic Computing and Telecommunications Services, especially Margaret Lane and Melvin Alcorn, for their abundant and generous assistance along the way. We say thanks to all the students in Honors Rhetoric who have asked great questions about the Internet. We acknowledge all who created and subscribe to the Alliance for Computers and Writing for sustaining one of the world's most informative and helpful listservs. We are grateful to Cindy Tallis-Wright, MOO teacher extraordinaire at Diversity University, and to Joe Pellegrino, a superb webmaster and colleague.

For this 2000 edition, we benefited from the astute suggestions of the following reviewers, to whom we say thanks upon thanks: Peter L. Bayers, Quinnipiac College and Fairfield University; Anne Bliss, University of Colorado-Boulder; Mauri Collins, Old Dominion University; Saul Cornell, Ohio State University; John R. Ellison, Texas A&M University; Victor Paul Hitchcock, St. Louis Community College-Meramec; Scott Johnson, John Wood Community College; Claudine Keenan, Peen State Lehigh Valley; Judith Kirkpatrick, Kapiolani Community College; Richard C. Rich, Virginia Tech; Katherine E. Staples, Austin Community College; and Kevin Sumrall, Montgomery College.

From the Bluegrass of Kentucky we bow eastward in deep gratitude to the many people at Bedford/St. Martin's who have helped us in our work. First of all, we thank Marilyn Moller and Talvi Laev, our wonderful and able editors whom we've come to know so well as friends and as the best of readers. We are grateful to Carla Samodulski for her contributions to the first edition. For their help with later stages of the current edition, and for coping graciously with an extremely tight schedule, we thank Colby Stong, project editor; Dennis Conroy, senior production supervisor; and Sandy Schechter, permissions manager.

Finally, we hug and cheer our families—our wives, Paula and Beth, and our children, Chelsea, Amy, Lisa, Kirk, Jonathan, and Benjamin, all of whom gave us the love, encouragement, and time to begin and complete Online! To all, a thousand thanks!

Andrew Harnack

Eugene Kleppinger

Copyright © 2000 by Bedford / St. Martin's