update help

[tommyboy]

Hi,
my wife is trying to use a website as a reference in one of her essays but needs to know when it was last updated , she has looked everywhere but cannot see it listed. Anybody got an answer???

Many thanks Tom

 

[Cheesy Mike]

The Google Toolbar gives you all sorts of info about a page. Have you taken a look at it?

Mike

 

[tommyboy]

reference

cheers mike
i think i know what you mean but is there a way of actually finding the info whilst looking at the page or do you cut and paste the url into google to get the info???

Regards Tom

 

[Geoff2]

Not 100% sure, but if you hit file and look under properties, the date of last modification is there. No wrong, ignore this

 

[tommyboy]

update

thanks for trying Geoff! lol

 

[wessie]

Does she need the date the website was last updated or the publishing date? These may be different as people often duplicate old material on a new website.

I'm currently at Cardiff Uni. Taking this site as an example, we would reference a web source in this style:

Wessie (2004), Computer help viewed on 23 Jan 2005 at www.whatever.com

The 2004 date comes from the copyright details at the bottom of this page (perhaps someone should tell BHT to pull his finger out and change it!)

You cover yourself against the website changing or disappearing by stating the viewed on date.

I would not use a website as an academic source unless I could determine the date that the material was actually written. Also, if the content is used to support an argument then I'd also need to be convinced that the content was valid: ideally subjected to some sort of peer review.

 

[tommyboy]

update

Cheers Wessie,
many thanks for the advice, it is the last time the website was updated that she requires, in line with the Harvard referencing system. Points noted about the reliability of web based info though you only have to look on here to notice how inaccurate that can be

Regards Tom