I'm doing social science research, specifically in education, so APA is the appropriate referencing standard. My question is, does anybody know how to reference an online forum?

Don't worry, It's not this forum that I want to reference, but another that I regularly monitor that is relevant to my area of research. It is not one specific post that I want to refer to, but rather a whole thread. Does anybody know how to do this?

Thanks.

I assume it is in the public domain? If so I would reference it just the same as any other internet site,same goes for a closed site, although you need to put something to flag up that itis not open to the general public. My research is in education, but I'm using Harvard, and have referenced sites in this way in my Masters. (Hope you have run this use of a site past your ethics committee :$)

Thanks for your reply Joyce. I'm not actually using the site for my research. I'm writing a paper and I've made a statement that I need to back up, and the forum is the most appropriate source to use. It is a publicly accessible forum so I guess I'll just reference it as a website. I have been very thorough with my ethics approvals for the actual research.

Hi,

My university uses Harvard system and when using EndNote software, chosing Harvard system, it did not list the URL link. Do u use EndNote? So, just to get the online links listed in my reference I used APA 5th. I hope my Supervisor will let me use this.
Any idea on making the Harvard come with URL link?

thanks

If it doesn't do it I think you can use the customise bit to get it to give you the right style of ref. I have a problem with it not doing the journal references right. I've given up on it at the moment. I still put all my references in there, but I use word too, so I add references in alphabetical order as I use them. I may sort out the endnote problem later on, but I've just used that in case anyone wants the stuff referenced differently in the future.:$ (just in case I get the chance to publish it where they need a different format, one of the people here had to pay a lot to get someone to change their references into another form)