18.311 citing URLs unnecessary?

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 18, No. 311.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 08:59:37 +0100
         From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>
         Subject: citing URLs unnecessary?

It occurs to me that the now common practice of citing URLs in printed
articles and books, usually with the date of last sight, is unnecessary.

Let's say the symbol "[*]" designates an online resource that may be found
quite straightforwardly, say by a Google search, from the name of whatever
precedes it. I contend that, for example, this:

"See the Society for the History of Technology [*]"

is at least as good as if not better than this:

"See the Society for the History of Technology, http://www.shot.jhu.edu/
(24/10/04)"

In other words, should we not be able to assume now in at least some kinds
of publications that our audience has the skills necessary to find an
online resource when it is named unambiguously?

Yours,
WM

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Received on Sun Oct 24 2004 - 04:15:09 EDT