You can use a Bookmarks or Favorites list in a Web browser on your computer, tablet, or smartphone to keep track of online sources. Keep these lists organized by putting related items into folders and giving the items on your list descriptive names. If you use this strategy, however, remember that pages on the Web can and do change — perhaps before you finish your writing project. Be aware as well that some Web pages are generated by database programs, which can result in unwieldy URLs such as

http://firstsearch.oclc.org/FUNC/QUERY:%7Fnext=NEXTCMD%7F%22/FUNC/SRCH_RESULTS%22%7FentityListType=0%7Fentitycntr=1%7FentityItemCount=0%7F%3Asessionid=1265726%7F4%7F/fsres4.txt

Although this long string of characters starts out looking like a normal URL, the majority of the characters are used by the database program to determine which records to display on a page. In many cases, the URL works only while you are conducting your search. If you add such a URL to your Bookmarks or Favorites list, there’s a good chance it won’t work later.