Using Internet-based research within novel storyline?

[OneGrassRoot]

If a main character in a novel is doing extensive online research which helps advance the plot, how does one reference these quoted passages and the websites themselves? Is there a different protocol than other references used within novels? The novel in question is historical fiction, so I'd like to bolster with facts and reference findings. I'm sure there are tons of examples of recent historical fiction novels which have used online material within the manuscript, but I'm posting this question here before doing more extensive research. DU IS my first-line resource for all things. Thanks to you brilliant people, so much time can be saved as I dive into the other 20 items on my to-do list. :)

Does one need to notify the website in advance, for example, if it's not a huge, well-known website?

Thanks in advance!:hug:

[DavidDvorkin]

1. Why would you describe the character's sources?

In the old days, the character would get plot-necessary info from books, perhaps in the library. The author wouldn't give the titles or Dewey Decimal info for those books. In a modern setting, I don't see why you'd need to give, say, real URLs.

If it's real historical information, then you want to be sure that you have the facts pinned down, but I don't see any need to say specifically where your character got those facts.

[Orrex]

2. I agree with this

And, for that matter, if you do include a real URL, you're going to appear to be shilling for the website in question.

There are countless ways around this. If you've posited a fictitious university, then you could simply say "Michelle checked the historical archives on the DU University server," or something similar. The important thing is to get to the relevant fact, so it's not necessary to document every virtual step that the character takes to get there.

Unless you're citing explicitly proprietary info, such as a newly discovered fact specifically reported in some particular study, then there's little value in naming your source outright.

[OneGrassRoot]

3. Thank you, DavidD and Orrex. Feedback much appreciated ! n/t

[HamdenRice]

4. Check out Jonathan Franzen's, "The Corrections"

It's about three disfuctional siblings and their parents' desire for them to come back to the midwest for one last Christmas reunion.

There are a lot of subplots, and one of them involves a mysterious drug company, and it's prozac like drug, Correctal, that one of the characters, Gary, invests in.

Gary does research on the web, and the author reproduces the phoney web pages within the text of the novel. It's very funny and effective, because Franzen skewers the "corporate-speak" found on the websites.

At another point, Franzen reproduces an email exchange (headings and all) between two of the other siblings, Chip and Denise, as well as parts of a website of a fraudulent investment scheme that Chip is composing in Lithuania.

Is that what you had in mind? You can use real facts, but make up the name and format of the website.

One last example -- from film, rather than fiction. In the movie, Broken Glass, about the New Republic journalist, Stephen Glass, who faked his sources, in part using fake websites, the movie shows the fake websites. Perhaps the book on which the film was based also shows websites within the text.

[OneGrassRoot]

5. Thank you for these examples...

They provide a few avenues I hadn't considered thus far.

Thank you for replying! :)