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Dear Editor;
When I use layered citations, my first layer documents the physical item and my second layer documents the digital item. As I'm now usually able to generate compliant layered EE citations using my suite of custom templates, I see that I could easily incorporate a switch to suppress the digital layer during "publishing".
While I do not currently intend to "publish" in the commercial sense, I may provide copies to others. Those readers may wish to have only the minimum information on what was used as the basis of my research. They may actually find lengthy citations to be overwhelming.
If I were publishing commercially, an editor would no doubt severely trim the full citation to reduce costs. Retaining only the physical layer would seem to be one obvious starting point for generating a publishable citation through the editing process.
Can one legitimately remove the digital layer for "publication" purposes, while retaining the full citation in ones personal material?
History-Hunter, the only…
History-Hunter, the only workable answer to your question is "It depends." If we consistently put the "physical item" in the first layer, relegating the digital delivery to the second layer, then we will have many situations in which our first layer is not a complete citation because (a) the website does not provide all the needed information and (b) we did not use the original so that we can identify the remaining details from our actual use of the original. If you construct a "switch" that lets you automatically delete the second layer (and the third, when it is necessary to cite our source's souuce?), then you would be left with any number of citations that were not complete.
EE is solidly built on one foundation: We cite what we use. That always keeps us on the safest ground.
If you have huge URLs you…
If you have huge URLs you could go the TinyURL route to make them much smaller. I've debated many times if that effort is worth it. I still am up in the air if I will do it in the future.