In January 1997 the Canadian Journal of Plant Science, together with the other scientific journals of the Agricultural Institute of Canada (AIC) took a bold step into the world of electronic publication. Now subscribers can choose whether to receive the traditional print versions of the journal, or print plus electronic access via the World Wide Web (WWW). The decision to begin electronic distribution of the journal was both logical and timely. Since the first volume of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society appeared in London in 1665, the methods of publication and dissemination of scientific information have changed little. While conferences, letters and student exchanges represented the primary informal methods of information exchange, archival scientific information resided only in paper-based journals. The informal methods of communication remain today relatively unchanged from their original form or focus, but the way in which science archives new findings and discoveries has undergone an amazing revolution in a little over a decade. Today, driven by the need for faster information retrieval and search capability, electronic media have become the most rapidly growing segment of the scientific publishing industry. A review published over 2 years ago reported that there are 140 scholarly journals in Canada alone published in whole or in part on the WWW and the number is growing by the day (McCallum 1997). Increasingly, scientific information is being archived electronically and e-Journals are just the tip of the iceberg. Personal electronic media such as CD-ROMs, are repositories of vast amounts of information and have enjoyed spectacular success in the areas of education and popular reference. Meanwhile trade magazines, newspapers and Internet sites are all important news sources, which may have particular relevance to the planning, execution or interpretation of research. Concerns over unreliability of information from non-peer reviewed sources are valid, but such sources are as prevalent in print, as in electronic media. Peer review of all contributions to the Canadian Journal of Plant Science using a well-established set of guidelines remains the cornerstone of journal editorial policy (Jefferson 1998). Among several questions asked of reviewers is whether the authors have adequately and correctly credited the contribution of previous workers and explained their results in the context of the published body of knowledge. Today that “published body of knowledge” includes not only print media but information published on CDROM, Internet sites and electronic journals resident on the WWW. To date the Canadian Journal of Plant Science has been silent on how to cite electronic sources of information that can and should be referenced in articles submitted for publication. At the 1998 meeting of the AIC Journals Policy Subcommittee meeting in Vancouver, we were charged with the task of developing guidelines for the citation of electronic publications in Canadian Journal of Plant Science articles. Several factors guided our work: The need for clarity and precision (to enable readers to easily access cited electronic articles); An e-citation style that was both internally consistent and similar to that already in place in other scientific print and electronic journals; A good match with print media reference styles already established for the Canadian Journal of Plant Science. Two organizations have led the way in developing appropriate e-citation styles: The American Psychological Association (APA) and the Modern Language Association (MLA). We have drawn on their recommendations (APA 1999; MLA 1998), together with the articles of Beckleheimer (1999), Gibaldi (1995) and Li and Crane (1997) in compiling the guidelines for Canadian Journal of Plant Science. The general form of the citation is Author. Date. Title [Type of medium]. Available: [Access date]. The following examples give the appropriate modifications of this basic form for individual publication types.