The Columbia Guide to Online Style. By Janice R. Walker and Todd Taylor. Columbia University Press, 218 pages, $39.50 (cloth); $17.50 (paper). 

These days, you can find nearly everything on the Internet. Whether you're looking for the latest baseball statistic or an herbal remedy for heartburn, it's
there. 

That's why professors like Todd Taylor are encouraging their students to use the Internet in their research. "It can be a really useful source of information," says Taylor, assistant professor of English. "It's hard to imagine that only a few years ago, students were hesitant to use the Internet." 

But back in 1994 when Taylor started having his students do research online, one of their first questions was, "How do we cite this material?" 

There was a whole new world at our fingertips, but there was no real organization or useful way to cite information found somewhere in cyberspace. 

Stylebook publishers, including the Chicago Manual of Style, have planned to address the problem of online citation, but such guides are not updated
often. 
So Taylor and his colleague Janice Walker, from the University of South Florida, decided to take action. Starting with a style sheet Walker had
assembled for her students, Taylor and Walker began the arduous task of compiling an online style manual that would be useful for writers in the
humanities as well as the sciences. 

Both Taylor and Walker felt it was important to put citation into context—to explain why. "So many students feel that citation is some sort of policing
effort to make sure they don't cheat," Taylor says. "But policing is not its essence. It's a way of organizing information, so that we can build knowledge
on top of knowledge." 

The book's first section addresses citation and gives specifics on how to cite such items as a web page, an email, or a graphics file. In the second section, the authors provide guidelines for those who want to prepare their manuscripts for print or electronic publication. 

"Most people can create a document that looks good printed," Taylor says, "but very few understand how to format something for electronic publication." 

Because the world of electronic publication is constantly shifting, Taylor and Walker have created a web site that will provide updates to the guide. 

And that's definitely one advantage this guide has over other style manuals, Taylor says. While others have had years to build reputations, this one is in
a unique position to set the precedent for how other guides deal with online documentation. Taylor says, "If we impact in a positive way what other
style guides do, I will be happy with that. The important thing is to help solve problems for everybody." 

The guide's web site is www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos.