"Let the reader beware." Although a play on the old adage "caveat emptor," the phrase is nonetheless useful. There is a disturbing tendency, even among the adept, to believe what is seen rather than what can be verified. The interactive multimedia characteristics of information available on the Net can easily seduce the unsuspecting. Moreover, those who travel the Net are more often than not enthusiasts who are infected with a faith in technology for technology's sake. The upshot is that Net information is often inaccurate, faulty, misleading, or just plain wrong. No where are the Net's deficiencies more noticeable than in the lack of systematic access, retrieval, and citation of e-documents. From the perspective of intellectual control, the Internet is still a chaotic electronic abyss.

And yet we flock to it.

And as we flock the problem grows. Reviewing the discussions about electronic citation form, the multiple attempts to provide answers only confirms the initial insight that the great strength of the Net -- its diversity and operational autonomy -- also creates its greatest deficiency -- the lack of intellectual control.

This webpage attempts to bring together the scattered and hesitant responses made thus far to the problem of citation style for e-documents. No one ought to be content with the material here gathered. Style is often seen as more a nuisance than a service, a pedantic devotion to form over substance. And yet when it comes to e-documents we encounter the phenomenon when form becomes substance. A mistyped ink-on-paper bibliographic citation, while annoying, usually does not prevent the reader from getting at the information source. But consider the consequences of any mistake in this actual URL:

gopher://cee.educ.indiana.edu/00/Turner_Adventure_Learning/
Gettysburg/Other_Resources/Chronology_of_the_CW.txt

gopher://gopher.uic.edu/11/research/history/hnetxx/40227000

A mistake in a URL is not just a "typo" -- it is a real barrier to retrieving information. The URL is not just a citation element, it is the "name, address, and telephone number" of the source -- in other words, it is the sole means to identify and access the desired information. In a webpage a mistaken URL means no hypertext, no link -- and no information. While authorities give the general advise of "cite as much as you can," it is important to remember that the more that is contained in a citation the greater the chances for mistakes in form and substance. Again, when form and substance converge the result is often a failed link.

What is the solution? Are there solutions? The proposed URN (universal resource name) offers hope, but it is still more a vehicle for discussion than a virtual world answer. In the end, electronic citation must become more like computer programming: the form a program language takes dictates what the machine will do, and a mistaken syntax of instruction will almost always insure failure or unwanted consequences. In hypermedia, the hypertext link is, in its way, a programming language. It must be precisely correct or it will fail. The goal of all electronic style -- transcending academic disciplines or instructional authority -- must be precision and accuracy. For the machines that will use e-document citations are, for the present, much less forgiving than their human operators. They cannot "discern" an intention or "guess" at what was meant. For the time being they reverberate with a more recent though no less insightful adage: garbage in, garbage out.

Caveat Lector.