Legal Research

citation by shortened URL

By John Gregory

What do the experts do in order to cite long URLs, especially in printed publications where the reader will be seriously challenged to type out into a browser the line-long (or more) address?

Is it acceptable to use services like www.tinyURL.com or www.bit.ly to provide a short, typable URL for one’s sources? The former at least says that the links one creates do not expire (probably as good a promise as one would get for the original site/cite).

The McGill guide says that one could cite an article just by the top level of the domain where it appears, e.g. S. Fodden, “Becoming Slaw”, July 14, 2009, http://www.globeandmail.com. Then the reader would have to search the site to find the article, or perhaps do a web search of the title of the article.

This strikes me as more work for the reader than giving a shortened URL that links directly to the article. Also, some sites still charge for content after a couple of weeks of free access. Sometimes linking directly to the article takes one past the “pay here” page.

One should I think provide the original long URL along with the shortened one, or the top level URL plus the abbreviation. But without the abbreviation, I suspect that most readers will never go to the electronic sources: too frustrating.

Other views? After all, is it really more work to type a long non-intuitive URL than to go to a physical library to get a periodical to find the article? Or do people just expect that following links will be easy, and not compare that effort to going to and picking up a printed source?

Perhaps most people never look at any of the sources cited in an article, though, unless they are testing the author or writing their own article on a related subject. Does that matter to the ease that one should try to create in accessing one’s sources?

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on July 14, 2009 (boomark / email).