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I find that some lecture notes available online as well as some websites (e.g. wiki) provide important sources of information for various scientific fields (e.g. mathematics), and are sometimes better than officially published papers or books in certain senses.

My question is that if I write a paper for official publication, can I cite them in the reference of the paper? If so, what is the format to cite them? For examples, to cite an online lecture note, may I simply write as preprint, or have to add the weblink to the note? For web sources, may I add weblinks of the websites to be cited?

For example, is it valid to cite something like: "P Schlicht. Lecture Note: A Introduction to Model Theory, Online...(or Preprint...), 2018"? I think there is no need to add the actual link to it because the link can be changed later.

Edit: This question is different from the suggested question for duplicate because I ask also what is the format to cite online notes and websites.

E Zhang
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  • mostly online notes provide references in the last page. you can cite from there – foobar May 30 '20 at 01:26
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    It's far more important to be precise and clear than to follow a rigid format. Make a good faith effort; if the copy editor cares, they'll fix whatever they think is wrong. Readers won't care. – JeffE May 30 '20 at 01:51
  • @JeffE, do you think the example in the post is valid or not? – E Zhang May 30 '20 at 01:53
  • You're missing a URL; otherwise it looks fine to me (assuming the actual title of the document begins "Lecture Note:"). But I'm not the person you have to please. – JeffE May 30 '20 at 01:56
  • But a URL can be changed later, e.g.if a person is moving to another institution. – E Zhang May 30 '20 at 01:57
  • There is no precise, universal format. More important is that relevant information can be given, such as where (=url) and when (=date uploaded) you found it. Of course, the author. Do not change the name the author gave it. The fact that the URL may change later is not your direct concern, and is not a reason not to give the location where you found it. – paul garrett May 30 '20 at 02:14
  • If the notes in question could be added to the Internet Archive, then one could cite that specific version. – David Roberts May 30 '20 at 02:56
  • From a historical perspective, citations like 'personal communication', 'unpublished manuscript', 'in preparation', 'to appear' (but never do) are not that rare, and much worse for the purposes of readers even being able to check the source! – David Roberts May 30 '20 at 03:22
  • Since URLs can be changed, it is better to search the lecture note by its name. – E Zhang May 30 '20 at 16:51

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