URL is an acronymn for Universal Resource Locator. In more prosaic terms, it is an address that enables a browser to read a particular file. A file might be located on the Internet, on a wide area network (sometimes referred to as an Intranet), on a local area network, or on your own computer. The URL for the Online Writing Center at Colorado State University is http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/WritingCenter. "Http" indicates that the URL uses the Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- basically, this tells the browser that it will be reading a Web page. "www.colostate.edu" refers to the particular server on the Internet where the file will be found. "Depts/WritingCenter" indicates the file that will be read by the browser.