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Re: Link labels and APA citations

for

From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Oct 19, 2014 4:50PM

I consider this whole idea of link handling (text enclosed by a link must explain what the link is about in a self-contained fashion) ill advice. Just because screen reader users tend to develop a habit on web pages to find their way through such a page by checking out all the links on it is not reason at all to impose a requirement on content (especially as opposed to navigational structures on a a web page) to enable such use of links. Same rules for everyone! An average sighted user will have to read the entries in a bibliography to figure out what they are about, and can the use the link provided with it accordingly. I fail to see why this should be different for people with a disability or two (unless some publication is specifically targeting people with specific needs). An approach like wrapping the whole bibliographical entry in a link is just … horrible. The URL is the link, the link is the URL. The bibliographical entry in the example is not a link, and the link is not a bibliographical entry.

Olaf


On 20 Oct 2014, at 00:36, Patrick H. Lauke < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> On 17/10/2014 19:14, Ed Eckenstein wrote:
>> This question concerns links in a research paper. Accessibility best
>> practices are to give links meaningful labels and not just use the URL
>> as a label. However APA format dictates citing the URL as in:
>>
>> Burgstahler, S. (n.d.). /Universal Design of Instruction (UDI):
>> Definition, Principles, Guidelines, and Examples/. Retrieved from The
>> University of Washington:
>> http://www.washington.edu/doit/Brochures/Academics/instruction.html
>
> Does anything in the APA format explicitly forbid making the entire reference (including "Burgstahler...") an actual link? This would still allow for a slightly more contextual link text (bonus points for using styling that suppresses the underline on the non-URL part but makes it return on focus/hover).