Open the most recent version of the style guide to the section on electronic sources. The style guide will generally give an example of the more conventional web citation types, and then go into more detail. The detail will cover familiar variations and answer the most commonly asked questions. Types of electronic sources covered in the guides include web sites, web documents, web pages, electronic periodicals, journals and astracts.
Determine what type of electronic source you want to cite and locate that type in the guide. Following the example citation, the style guide will explain each part, such as author's name, publication date, title and Internet address. It will also suggest what to do if you cannot ascertain all the information required. Often, the guide will use sample web pages to show where the information you need is located.
Read the guidelines that follow the examples. Even if your source fits perfectly into the sample format, you will need to understand the guidelines for variations. For example, for an article from an online journal, the APA style guide sample will include the URL: author, publication date, title, publisher, URL. Don't give in to the temptation to follow the sample format before reading the more detailed information that follows it. This information will reveal that a journal article that appears both online and in print does not require the URL in the citation, even if you only used the online version as your source. If your source falls into this category, your citation will be wrong if it includes the URL.
Type the bibliographical citations for each of your references before writing the paper. Use this information as a reference for in-text citations where required by your style guide.
Check your spelling and punctuation. For example, APA style requires that no period follow the URL. MLA style requires the URL to be enclosed in < > with a period at the end. Verify names and dates. Match in-text citations to bibliographic citations to make sure you're using the same spelling and dates in both places.