Author Guidelines for Electronic References.

Writers and practitioners have benefited from the growing availability of resources on the World Wide Web and in electronic databases. These sources provide up-to-date information on clinical practices, research findings, policy developments, and emerging ethical standards. I encourage JMHC authors to include Web references in their articles because the most recent knowledge and professional developments are often available in these resources.

Contributing authors often struggle to report electronic references in the correct format. The first purpose of this editorial is to alert authors that the American Psychological Association (APA, 1999) Guidelines for Electronic Reference Formats have been adopted as the standard for JMHC. Our Guidelines to Authors have been amended to reflect this change. All authors submitting manuscripts for publication consideration should consult the new APA guidelines for electronic reference formats (http:/www.apa.org/journals/webref. html). Some have reported difficulty in directly accessing this Web address. The guidelines can be reached by going to the APA Web site (http://www.apa.org) and then following the links from the Sitemap to Publications to Other Publications to Author's Corner. The guidelines are posted in the Author's Corner of the APA Web site. I suggest that authors bookmark this site because the guidelines are subject to revision.

The second purpose of this editorial is to provide a brief discussion of the types of electronic resources that can be cited in a journal article. According to the APA guidelines, there are four types of electronic references: email communications, Web sites, documents posted on a Web site, and articles and abstracts from electronic databases.

1. Email communications are cited in the text as personal communications and are not included in the reference list. Authors are responsible for ascertaining the veracity of all email correspondence reported as personal communications.

2. Web site addresses (http://www.amhca.org) are provided within the text of the manuscript. A reference list citation is not required for a general Web site address.

3. Specific Web documents are referenced in the same manner as print references. For example, "AMHCA has launched a new Medicare campaign (Powell, 2000)." The author and date of the publication are reported in the text. A reference list citation is required for specific Web documents. The citation must include the author, date and title of document, publication or publisher, date of retrieval, and complete Web address.

4. The requirements for citing and referencing articles and abstracts from electronic databases are similar to those for specific Web documents. The author and publication date are reported in the text. The reference list citation must include author, publication date, title, publication source, date of retrieval, and retrieval source.

It is my hope that these new guidelines will encourage authors to aggressively seek out resources on the Web and other electronic media in order to provide our readers with the most current information on contemporary clinical issues.

REFERENCES

American Psychological Association. (1999). Electronic reference formats recommended by the American Psychological Association. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved February 8, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http:/www.apa.org/journals/webref.html

Powell, B. (2000, January 19). News from Washington. Alexandria, VA: American Mental Health Counselors Association. Retrieved February 8, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www/amhca.org/news/html