Is it fine to use link shorteners for research paper citations?
I'm curious about the "properness" of using shortened links (a la bit.ly or tinyurl) in research papers. I haven't been able to find any sort of definitive reference about whether or not this is accepted or frowned upon.
I found a blot post by a professor at Texas A&M who stated he was going to use shortened links in an upcoming paper.
I'm working on a paper that won't be published or anything, but it's got a lot of online references that make footnotes horridly ugly, and so I'm taking the opportunity to ask about this.
If it varies based on publishing area/type (scientific, editorial, etc.), that would be great to know as well.
Edit: Since it's coming up in answers... this is a hobby project in which I'm trying to mathematically describe a multi-level marketing scheme. It seems some think it would be frustrating to see a shortened link, perhaps because the actual link would reveal some helpful information when reading a paper.
But what if it's simply a pdf that I was able to find, it's official, but it's not hosted an an "official site" anymore? For example, consider the following:
Lindeen, Monica J., Commissioner of Securities and Insurance and Montana State Auditor (2010). Case No.: SEC-2010-12. Retrieved 30 July 2011 from http://www.starnewsonline.com/assets/pdf/WM21622123.pdf.
Lindeen, Monica J., Commissioner of Securities and Insurance and Montana State Auditor (2010). Case No.: SEC-2010-12. Retrieved 30 July 2011 from http://bit.ly/pBrheo.
Is there a huge difference here? I originally found the link from the actual Montana government site, but it's no longer there, perhaps since the cease and desist order was resolved... now it happens to be downloadable from a "star news online" site. It's the same official document, and downloading the pdf would make that clear.
What would seeing "starnewsonline" in the url reveal that's important for the paper?
Lastly, that edit was an aside. It's helpful to know opinions, but the actual question is still more about official acceptance or practice in the real world.
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I'm wrestling with this issue right now. It is annoying to see a long, long URL, but equally annoying to see meaningless short URLs (beginning 'bit.ly,' which I mistakenly took to be malware sites at first). Since Bitly now allows customized short URLs, how about this as a citation: "Official Records, Series 1, Vol. 41, Part 3, 423. Google eBooks [shortened URL] http://bit.ly/OfficialRecords-I-43-3-Eli-Long .
The short URL indicates the source, and replaces this monstrosity: https://books.google.com/books?id=xcVZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA423&lpg=PA423&dq=col.+eli+long+and+waterhouse%27s+house&source=bl&ots=ZrL5PI1rYe&sig=46cfvONeV8KIjIJmGFeLMgLH6DY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwix9JGPt5nOAhVM5yYKHRjyDRAQ6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q=col.%20eli%20long%20and%20waterhouse's%20house&f=false .
The long URL produced a broken link anyway, because Google used the (') character. Some eBooks have even longer URLs, so I need this common-sense solution. For my current project, this is my decision to make, but for a formal thesis or publication, would it be acceptable? Chicago Style allows a good bit of leeway. MLA Style is less flexible.
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URLs which span several lines and contain special symbols simply require a short link. Example:
In such a case, do not worry and use a (well-known/reliable) link shortener. Tinyurl.com has the advantage, that http://preview.tinyurl.com/ ... leads to a preview site where the user can see the url the link is leading to and then decide whether to proceed to that location or whether not to visit it. Example for the url given above:
When you are using a DOI which is too long, you can use a http://shortdoi.org/. While its target is not obvious (is a DOI obvious at all?), it is still a DOI, thus some respectability can be assumed by the reader.
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I am not in academia, but I would actually be annoyed to see a shortened URL as a footnote. You aren't writing it by hand; as far as I know there aren't maximum printed page requirements; if it's being posted online there are no physical maximum lengths; you aren't paying for anything by the character — why would you go out of your way to hide a source?
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