cite internet source in essay

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How to Cite a Website and Online/Electronic Resources

The pages outlines examples of how to cite websites and media sources using the Harvard Referencing method .

What are electronic sources?

An electronic source is any information source in digital format. The library subscribes to many electronic information resources in order to provide access for students. Electronic sources can include: full-text journals, newspapers, company information, e-books, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, economic data, digital images, industry profiles, market research, etc. 

Should I include extra information when I cite electronic sources?

Referencing electronic or online sources can be confusing—it's difficult to know which information to include or where to find it. As a rule, provide as much information as possible concerning authorship, location and availability.

Electronic or online sources require much of the same information as print sources (author, year of publication, title, publisher). However, in some cases extra information may be required:

• the page, paragraph or section number—what you cite will depend on the information available as many electronic or online sources don’t have pages.
• identify the format of the source accessed, for example, E-book, podcast etc.
• provide an accurate access date for online sources, that is, identify when a source was viewed or downloaded.
• provide the location of an online source, for example, a database or web address.

In-text citations

Cite the name of the author/ organisation responsible for the site and the date created or last revised (use the most recent date):

(Department of Social Services 2020)

According to the Department of Social Services (2020) ...

List of References

Include information in the following order:

• author (the person or organisation responsible for the site
• year (date created or revised)
• site name (in italics)
• name of sponsor of site (if available) 
• accessed day month year (the date you viewed the site)
• URL or Internet address (between pointed brackets). If possible, ensure that the URL is included without a line-break.

Department of Social Services 2020, Department of social services website , Australian government, accessed 20 February 2020, <https: //www .dss.gov.au/>.

Specific pages or documents within a website

Information should include author/authoring body name(s) and the date created or last revised:

(Li 2004) or:

(World Health Organisation 2013) 

• author (the person or organisation responsible for the site)
• year (date created or last updated)
• page title (in italics)
• name of sponsor of site (if available)
• accessed day month year (the day you viewed the site)
• URL or Internet address (pointed brackets). 

One author:

Li, L 2014,  Chinese scroll painting H533 , Australian Museum, accessed 20 February 2016, <https: // australianmuseum.net.au/chinese-scroll-painting-h533>.

Organisation as author:

World Health Organisation 2013, Financial crisis and global health , The United Nations, accessed 1 August 2013, <http: //www .who.int/topics/financial_crisis/en/>.

Webpages with no author or date

If the author's name is unknown, cite the website/page title and date:

( Land for sale on moon 2007)  

Land for sale on moon   2007, accessed 19 June 2007, <http: // www . moonlandrealestate.com>.

If there is not date on the page, use the abbreviation n.d. (no date):

(ArtsNSW n.d.)

List if References

ArtsNSW n.d.,  New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards , NSW Department of the Arts, Sport and Recreation, accessed 19 June 2007, <http: // www . arts.nsw.gov.au/awards/ LiteraryAwards/litawards.htm>.

Kim, M n.d.,  Chinese New Year pictures and propaganda posters , Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, accessed 12 April 2016, <https: // collection.maas.museum/set/6274>.

Media articles (print)

If there is no author, list the name of the newspaper, the date, year and page number:

( The Independent 2013, p. 36)

If there is an author, cite as you would for a journal article:

(Donaghy 1994, p. 3)

Articles can also be mentioned in the running text:

University rankings were examined in a Sydney Morning Herald report by Williamson (1998, p. 21), where it was evident that ...

• year of publication
• article title (between single quotation marks)
• publication title (in italics with maximum capitalisation)
• date of article (day, month)
• page number

Williamson, S 1998, ‘UNSW gains top ranking from quality team’, Sydney Morning Herald , 30 February, p.21. 

Donaghy, B 1994, ‘National meeting set to review tertiary admissions’, Campus News ,  3-9 March, p. 3.

An unattributed newspaper article:

If there is no named author, list the article title first:

• Article title, between single quotation marks,
• Publication title (in italics with maximum capitalisation)
• Date published (date, month, year)
• Page number (if available)

‘Baby tapir wins hearts at zoo’, The Independent , 9 August 2013, p. 36

Online media articles

A news article from an electronic database:

If the article has a named author:

(Pianin 2001)

• author (if available)
• newspaper title (in italics)
• date of article (day, month, page number—if given—and any additional information available)
• accessed day month year (the date you accessed the items)
• from name of database
• item number (if given).

Pianin, E 2001, 'As coal's fortunes climb, mountains tremble in W.Va; energy policy is transforming lives', The Washington Post,  25 February, p. A03, accessed March 2001 from Electric Library Australasia.

A news article without a named author:

No named author:

( New York Daily Times 1830)  

The article can also be discussed in the body of the paragraph:

An account of the popularity of the baby tapir in The Independent (2013) stated that ...

If there is no named author, list the article title first.

'Amending the Constitution', New York Daily Times , 16 October 1851, p. 2, accessed 15 July 2007 from ProQuest Historical Newspapers database.

'Baby tapir wins hearts at zoo', The Independent , 9 August 2013, Accessed 25 January 2014, <http: // www . independent.ie/world-news/and-finally/baby-tapir-wins-hearts-at-zoo-30495570.html>.

An online news article:

Cite the author name and year:

(Coorey 2007)

Coorey, P 2007, ‘Costello hints at green safety net’, Sydney Morning Herald , 10 May, accessed 14 May 2012, <http: // www . smh.com.au/news/business/costello-hints-at-green-safety-net/2007/05/09/1178390393875.html>.

While a URL for the article should be included, if it is very long (more than two lines) or unfixed (from a search engine), only include the publication URL:

Holmes, L 2017, 'The woman making a living out of pretending to be Kylie Minogue', The Daily Telegraph , 23 April, accessed 22 May 2017, <http: // www . dailytelegraph.com.au>.

Media releases

Cite the author (the person responsible for the release) and date:

Prime Minister Howard (2007) announced plans for further welfare reform...

• author name or authoring organisation name
• title of release (in italics)
• accessed day month year
• URL (between pointed brackets) 

Office of the Prime Minister 2007, Welfare Payments Reform , media release, accessed 25 July 2007, <http: // www . pm.gov.au/media/Release/2007/Media_Release24432.cfm>.

How to cite broadcast materials and communications

Harvard referencing

• How to cite different sources
• How to cite references
• How to cite online/electronic sources
• Broadcast and other sources
• Citing images and tables
• FAQs and troubleshooting
• About this guide
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Citing internet sources, internet sources - general information, special demands of internet sources.

• Copying Text without Plagiarizing

How to Cite Internet Sources

Print sources posted online, online versions of print periodicals, databases (like lexis-nexis), online journals, organization websites, topic websites, private websites, online video (like youtube), forums, listservs, chats, & bulletin boards, email & instant messages, i nternet vs. print sources.

Some professors will discourage you from using sources you find or access over the Internet. Although such restrictions may be excessive, there are reasons to be wary. It’s much easier to publish information on the Internet than to publish a book or periodical in print. Since it’s easier, Web posters are not always as careful to make sure that the information is accurate. For one thing, print publishing is more expensive, so many print publishers are careful not to make mistakes or to cut corners, in case what they publish turns out to be unreliable—and therefore useless. The seeming anonymity of the Internet also encourages some people to write things quickly, without checking to be sure of their facts or their conclusions. Most of us have had the experience of sending by email something we wrote quickly—perhaps when rushed or angry. Often these are things we wouldn’t print, sign, and mail, because those extra steps give us time to consider our words more carefully, and also because we recognize a higher expectation that things in print should be trustworthy.

N o Author, No Authority

In the context of writing in college, material from much of the Internet is less reliable than print sources because it’s hard to tell who wrote or posted it. As discussed in the section  Why Cite? , the essence of academic scholarship is a conversation among authors. On many websites, it’s difficult to determine the author of the material. If the site creator’s name is listed, it’s still sometimes hard to tell whether the information has been reprinted from some other source. If you reach a website through a search engine, you may have to find the site’s homepage or search around in the “contact” information in order to identify the author or the organization that sponsors the site. Even if you find the author’s name, Internet sources make it harder to tell what status that person has in his or her field. Is the author an expert, a fan, or just a crackpot? After finding a website that seems useful and tracking down the author’s name, you may need additional research (perhaps using Google) to learn whether the author has any claim to credibility.

But of course, countless reliable sources can be accessed on the web, and even unreliable sources have some uses in research writing. (See  Scholarly vs. Popular Sources  for more about unreliable sources.) These days, many students and scholars use Web sources extensively in research and teaching. But they take extra care to assess and report the provenance of these sources.

Types of Websites

In this guide’s discussion of Internet sources, we draw distinctions between various kinds of websites: those sponsored by  organizations , those devoted to a  single topic , and  private websites  that are maintained by a single person—often a devoted fan of the topic under discussion. To some degree, these categories distinguish more and less reliable sources of information. But the distinctions are neither clear nor entirely stable. Some organizations, while established leaders in their fields, have very few resources available to maintain and update their websites. Some private individuals, although hosting websites as a hobby, are experts in their fields and consider accuracy on their sites to be the highest priority. It’s often useful to identify your source in the body of your paper (and not just in your citation or footnote); this identification is especially important when you use material from the Internet. If you give a sense of what kind of Web source you’re using, the reader will be better able to understand the context of your evidence.

Basics of Citing Websites

When listing Internet sources in your References or Works Cited, the most important thing to remember is that your goal is to make it easy for a reader to consult your sources. (This same goal is paramount when listing print sources.) For most sites, that means you should include the  full  URL for the page you cite in your paper (the web address that begins “http”). But websites change, and the address you used won’t always be active when your reader tries to view a source. For that reason, it’s important to include both the date you accessed the site and also a full account of the person, group, or organization that sponsors the site. Knowing more about the author helps readers to assess the source and also, sometimes, to find the source when the website has been moved or revised.

The general form of a citation from an Internet source is:

Author’s name. Title of Document. Title of Website. Sponsor of Website. Date of Document. Date of Access. URL.

As you will see in the discussion of specific categories, however, some of these items may be hard to determine.

Avoiding Plagiarism

The ease of using electronic sources of any kind can make it harder to keep track of where the source ends and your original contribution begins—and you must always keep that distinction clear. See  How to Copy and Paste but Not Plagiarize  for advice about how to use electronic sources wisely.

Respecting Privacy

Most of this guide focuses on helping you subordinate sources to your own ideas. In general, we highlight your need to respect authors’  intellectual  or  property  rights, explaining how to give people credit for their ideas while distinguishing your own original contributions. But the ease of using electronic sources also raises dangers about what might be called  privacy  rights, leading you to make public words that the original author intended only as private communication. When someone speaks in public, participates in an interview, or publishes a piece of writing, he or she implicitly agrees that other people may refer to this material in research. But some electronic sources blur the line between public and private communication. (Private communications also have a different force of authority than deliberately published material; see  Scholarly vs. Popular Sources  for more information.)

If in doubt about whether a given text should be considered public or private, we urge you to check with the original author before quoting it in your own work. Although the following categories overlap, they may help you decide when more care is warranted to avoid an invasion of privacy. (1) Web versions of sources that also appear in print are generally safe to quote, since most print publishers take care to secure rights before publication. (2) Publicly accessible websites are generally safe to quote. You may occasionally find a website reposting information that’s clearly from category 3, in which case you may wish to contact the original author before using the material. But if you can access the information through regular surfing, without passwords, it’s probably safe to use. (3) Communications sent via email or accessed by membership in a specific group are generally considered private, and you should exercise care in quoting from them in your papers.

Even in this last category, there’s not a hard and fast rule you can follow. If your university sends an announcement to all students via email, you may reasonably consider this public information. If your best friend reveals something damaging or embarrassing in an email sent only to you, it’s clearly private. But what if a professor writes to you about something related to the course? Or if you receive a message that’s sent only to the members of a small club? What about the discussion forums that many courses set up for students to exchange ideas about the readings? These cases are all ambiguous. Unless there’s been an explicit agreement that the material is public, we encourage you to check before using such messages in your work.

Copying Text Without Plagiarizing

One convenience of using electronic sources is the ability—once you’ve selected the passages you wish to quote—to copy and paste quotations instead of having the retype them into your paper. Even before you begin drafting a paper, copying and pasting sections from your sources seems an easy way to take notes, so that you can look the material over later without surfing back to the website. This very convenience, however, also leads writers into danger. In the midst of researching and taking notes, it’s just too easy to paste quotations into your file with the intention to go back later and note down the source. When you return to your draft, it can be hard to distinguish your own writing from the passages you’ve copied.

As discussed in  Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism , the worst consequence of failing to acknowledge sources is to yourself: if you paste in someone’s words as your own, you will miss the opportunity to add your commentary, and therefore miss an opportunity to grow as a thinker and writer. Most of this guide focuses on such intellectual reasons for working properly with sources, rather than emphasizing the penalties of plagiarism. But because the copy and paste technique is so common, it’s especially important to warn you about its potential for abuse. Every year students come before the Yale Executive Committee having committed plagiarism through pasting material from the Internet into their papers and then forgetting to go back and identify the sources. Even when the oversight seems unintentional, these students are guilty of plagiarism, and must face penalties.

But you can avoid this danger with one very simple precaution:

Every time you highlight material from a website to use in your paper, save the material to a new file. Copy the URL (the full web address that begins with “http”) at the top of the new file, and give the file a name that briefly identifies the website.

Taking this extra step will allow you to review your sources when you’ve made more progress with your paper. So if you were thinking of using a piece of this web page in your paper, you’d copy the relevant portion into a Word file, add the URL, and perhaps call the file “Writing at Yale Copy/Paste Advice.” You’ll still be able to avoid retyping by copying and pasting from the new file you’ve made. But you will have created a record of your excerpts to help you distinguish your sources from your own work. For your own convenience, you may also want to add other citation information below the URL—such as author and date of access—before moving on to examine the next website. See  Special Demands of Internet Sources  for more information about how to cite websites. See also  Scholarly vs. Popular Sources  for advice about how to use Internet sources effectively.

Note: Even when you properly identify Internet sources, the very pasting that feels like a time-saver can lead you to use block quotations that are longer and less precise than necessary. Many writers, especially beginning academic writers, are better served by retyping quotations, because this extra step leads them to edit quotations and to paraphrase. You could still cut and paste to help you keep track of interesting passages before deciding which ones to quote in your paper (remembering, as suggested above, to create a new file for each website you work with).

MLA: Aristotle.  Nicomachean Ethics . 350 B.C.E. Trans. W. C. Ross.  The Internet Classics Archives . Ed. Daniel C. Stevenson. 1994. Web. 20 May 2015. [author.] [ title .] [original publication date.] [ website name .] [website author.] [update date.] [medium.] [date of access.]

APA: Aristotle. (1994).  Nicomachean ethics . (W. C. Ross, Trans.). In D. C. Stevenson (Ed.),  The internet classics archives . (Original work published 350 B.C.E.). Retrieved from  http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen(link is external) [author, by last name.] [(posting date).] [ title. ] [website author, (“Ed.”),] [ website name .] [(original publication date).] [ Retrieved   from  URL]

Note: in APA style, no access date is necessary for information that will not be changed or updated, like an electronic book or a journal or newspaper article.

Also note: when a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is available, list the DOI instead of the URL. (A DOI is a unique alphanumeric string assigned by a registration agency to identify content and provide a persistent link to its location on the Internet.)

Chicago: 16. Aristotle,  Nicomachean Ethics . [fn. #.] [author last name,  shortened t itle .] [Shortened Chicago reference; see  More Notes on Chicago Style  for more information.]

Note: In the Bibliography, Chicago style does not generally include date of access.

Also note: You may notice that listing Internet sources often takes more time and care than listing print sources. Since the authorship and location of Web sources are harder to establish, readers need even more information in order to assess sources and to retrieve them for further study. See  Special Demands of Internet Sources  for more information.

MLA: Scott, Janny, and David Leonhardt. “Shadowy Lines That Still Divide.”  New York  Times  15 May 2005. Web. 20 May 2015. [author.] [“article title.”] [ periodical title ] [publication date.] [medium.] [date of access.]

APA: Scott, J., & Leonhardt, D. (2005, May 15). Shadowy lines that still divide.  New York Times.  Retrieved from  http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/national/class/OVERVIEW-FINAL.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0(link is external) [author.] [(publication date).] [article title.] [ periodical title. ] [ Retrieved from  URL]

Note: in APA style, no date of access is necessary for information that will not be changed or updated, like an electronic book or a journal or newspaper article.

Chicago: 17. Scott and Leonhardt, “Shadowy Lines.” [fn. #.] [author last name, “shortened title.”] [Shortened Chicago reference; see  More Notes on Chicago Style  for more information.]

If a print journal, magazine, or newspaper maintains a version of its publication URL online, articles that you cite are listed in your Works Cited or list of References by the name of the article’s author. In MLA style, the name is followed by the title of the article—in APA, the publication date comes after the author. (If no author is identified, list by the article’s title. In that case, be sure to give at least a few key words from the title in the body of your paper, so that readers know how to find the source in your bibliography.) Next list the title of the journal, magazine, or newspaper. Give the publication date of the article next for MLA, followed by the date that you accessed the site. For APA , give the full URL—the Web address that begins with “http.” When a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is available, list the DOI instead of the URL. (A DOI is a unique alphanumeric string assigned by a registration agency to identify content and provide a persistent link to its location on the Internet.)

Note: If you use a database service (such as Lexis-Nexis) to access electronic sources, you must credit the database. See  Databases (like Lexis-Nexis)  for more information.

Also note: Although online versions of print sources are often more reliable than online journals or private websites, their reliability is no greater than that of their print versions. See  Scholarly vs. Popular Sources  for more information.

MLA: Wallis, Claudia, et al. “The New Science of Happiness.”  Time  17 Jan. 2005: A1-A55.  Academic Search Premier . Web. 20 May 2015. [author, by last name.] [“article title.”] [ periodical title ] [publication date]: full page numbers for article.] [ database name .] [medium.] [date of access.]

APA: Wallis, C., Coady, E., Cray, D., Park, A., & Ressner, J. (2005, January 17). The new science of happiness.  Time , A1-A55. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier [author(s), by last name, initial).] [(publication date).] [article title.] [ periodical title ,] [full page numbers for article.] [ Retrieved   from  database name or URL]

Chicago: 18. Wallis et al., “The New Science.” [fn. #.] [author last name, “shortened title.”] [Shortened Chicago reference; see  More Notes on Chicago Style  for more information.]

Also note: In the Bibliography, Chicago style adds the URL (the Web address that begins with “http”), and does not name the database service directly if that name is part of the Web address. For Chicago, as for APA„ when a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is available, list the DOI instead of the URL. (A DOI is a unique alphanumeric string assigned by a registration agency to identify content and provide a persistent link to its location on the Internet.)

Several companies maintain databases that make it easier to find articles on the topic you’re researching. Using these databases is especially helpful for connecting you to scholarly sources, which have been vetted by experts in their field before publication. The Yale library system subscribes to many such databases, allowing you to access them for free. See  Scholarly vs. Popular Sources  for more information about using scholarly sources. If you use a service like this—such as Lexis-Nexis—to find an article that you then cite in your paper, you must include the database name in your Works Cited or list of References. (The principle is that you want your reader to know how to retrieve your source for further research.)

Note: You may notice that listing Internet sources often takes more time and care than listing print sources. Since the authorship and location of Web sources are harder to establish, readers need even more information in order to assess sources and to retrieve them for further study. See  Special Demands of Internet Sources  for more information.

Also note: Although online versions of print sources are often more reliable than  Online Journals  or  Private Websites , their reliability is no greater than that of their print versions. See  Scholarly vs. Popular Sources  for more information.

Hitchens, Christopher. “Unfairenheit 9/11.”  Slate  21 June 2004. Web. 20 May 2015. < http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2004/06/unfairenheit_911.single>.(link is external)>. [author, by last name.] [“article title.”] [ online journal title ] [posting date.] [medium.] [date of access.] [.]

Note: MLA style does not require the use of URLs in citations of internet sources. However, some instructors may prefer that you use URLs. In this case, MLA suggests that the URL appear in angle brackets after the date of access.

APA: Hitchens, C. (2004, June 21). Unfairenheit 9/11.  Slate . Retrieved from  http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2004/06/unfairenheit_911.single(link is external) [author.] [(posting date).] [article title.] [ online journal title. ] [ Retrieved from  URL]

Chicago: 19. Hitchens, “Unfairenheit 9/11.” [fn. #.] [author last name, “shortened title.”] [Shortened Chicago reference; see  More Notes on Chicago Style  for more information.]

An online journal is a website that publishes new material on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), with a journal title or other masthead, but that does not release a print publication. An online journal is not the same as the online version of a periodical that also publishes in print. (See  Online Versions of Print Periodicals .) The distinction matters, because online journals—while often more reliable than  private websites —are often considered less reliable than print sources or Internet versions of print sources. See  Scholarly vs. Popular Sources  for more information.

When including an article from an online journal in your Works Cited or list of References, list it by the name of the article’s author. This information is followed in MLA style by the article’s title, by the publication date in APA style. (If no author is identified, list by the article’s title.) Next list the online journal’s name. Give the publication date of the article (for MLA), followed by the date that you accessed the site. Finally, give the full URL—the Web address that begins with “http.” When a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is available, list the DOI instead of the URL. (A DOI is a unique alphanumeric string assigned by a registration agency to identify content and provide a persistent link to its location on the Internet.)

MLA: Fangmann, Alexander. “Illinois Supreme Court Strikes Down Pension Cuts.” 11 May 2015.  World Socialist Web Site . Web. 20 May 2015. < https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/05/11/illi-m11(link is external) >. [author, by last name.] [“section or page title.”] [posting date.] [ organization name. ] [date of access.] [.]

APA: Fangmann, A. (2015, May 11). Illinois Supreme Court strikes down pension cuts. Retrieved 20 May 2015, from the World Socialist Web Site: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/05/11/illi-m11(link is external) [author, by last name, initial.] [(posting date).] [page title.] [ Retrieved  date of access,] [ from  organization name:] [URL]

Chicago: 20. Fangmann, A. “Illinois Supreme Court.” [fn. #.] [author last name, “shortened title.”] [Shortened Chicago reference; see  More Notes on Chicago Style  for more information.]

Many organizations maintain websites hosting information about the organization or about the field that they work in. Some examples include commercial companies, universities, non-profit organizations, political groups, and government agencies. The reliability of these websites varies widely, as these organizations often use their websites to promote specific causes and may therefore emphasize only the facts and ideas that support their goals. See  Scholarly vs. Popular Sources  for more information.

But sometimes these organizations have the most comprehensive coverage of topics that pertain to them. For certain topics, it’s also useful to examine what the interested parties say, even if you must remember to balance it with research into other points of view. If you are conscientious about identifying who sponsors the site, your reader will be better prepared to examine the material you present. Websites hosted by university departments and programs would generally be considered reliable sources, especially in their areas of scholarly expertise. (More caution is warranted when the site discusses politics or issues of university governance. Be careful, too, to distinguish sites created by individual faculty members from those sponsored by the larger institution.)

Whenever possible, you should identify the author of the material you use from a website. Some pages you access will have separate titles or sub-titles, which can be used like the titles of an  article in a journal . This title is followed by the name of the main website, if there is one, and the name of the sponsoring organization. After this comes the full URL for the material you’re using.The final item is the date that you accessed the site.

Note: It’s sometimes hard to find the author of material on an organization website. In that case, list by the title of the site—if there is one—or by the name of the organization. If you can’t find any of this information, even after searching through the site’s links, you may be using a  private website  or  topic website , and should review the information for those sources.

MLA: “The Horcrux of Love.”  Mugglenet.com: The #1 Harry Potter Site . 3 Jan. 2013. Web. 20 May 2015. < http://www.mugglenet.com/2013/01/the-horcrux-of-love(link is external) >. [“section or page title.”] [ website name .] [posting date.] [medium.] [date of access.] [.]

APA: The horcrux of love. (2013, Jan. 3).  Mugglenet.com: The #1 Harry Potter site . Retrieved 20 May 2015, from  http://www.mugglenet.com/2013/01/the-horcrux-of-love(link is external) [section or page title.] [(posting date).] [ website name .] [ Retrieved  date of access,] [ from  URL]

Chicago: 21. “The Horcrux of Love.” [fn. #.] [“shortened title.”] [Shortened Chicago reference; see  More Notes on Chicago Style  for more information.]

Websites that are  print sources posted online ,  online versions of print periodicals ,  online journals , or  organization websites  are discussed separately. By “topic websites,” we mean sites that are dedicated to a single issue, such as the life of a famous person, the main ideas of a social movement, or the details of a popular television show. This category is a little hard to define. Unlike online journals or other periodicals, topic websites are not usually revised on a regular schedule, although material may be added from time to time. And unlike organization websites, topic websites do not usually promote the products or mission of a particular institution—which means they also don’t have the organization’s reputation to back up their authority. Finally, topic websites may also overlap with private websites, which often focus on a single issue that their author is passionate about.

Still, the category is worth knowing about, because a lot of background information on general topics like “Medieval Literature” or “Film Noir” is found on websites that don’t easily fit any of the other categories. You’ll want to double-check material you find on Topic Websites, and you may need to treat them as  popular sources  rather than  scholarly sources . If you take these precautions, topic websites are sometimes useful for giving a broad overview or putting you on the track of more authoritative sources. (See  Special Demands of Internet Sources  for more information.)

When these websites appear to be wholly or primarily the work of one author, list by the author’s name, followed by the title of the article or specific page you’re using (if there is one), the website title (often the name of the topic), the date of posting (if known), the date you accessed it, and the full URL—the Web address that begins with “http.”

If the site you’re using is sponsored by an organization of some kind (like a company, a university department, or a political group), it may qualify as an  organization website , and you should review the information for those sources.

MLA: Mohanraj, Mary Anne. “The Early Years: 1971-1985.”  Mary Anne Mohanraj . 20 May 2015. Web. < http://www.mamohanraj.com/BioPhotos/bio1.html> . [author.] [“section or page title.”] [ website name. ] [date of access] [medium.] [.]

APA: Mohanraj, M. A. The early years: 1971-1985.  Mary Anne Mohanraj . Retrieved May 20, 2015, from  http://www.mamohanraj.com/BioPhotos/bio1.html [author.] [section or page title.] [ website name .] [ Retrieved  date of access,] [ from  URL]

Chicago: 22. Mohanraj, “The Early Years.” [fn. #.] [author last name, “shortened title.”] [Shortened Chicago reference; see  More Notes on Chicago Style  for more information.]

Private websites come in many forms. Some dabble in multiple topics, about which the site’s author may not even profess any special expertise. Some announce themselves as fan sites, indicating that the author has an intense interest but no special background or credentials. Still others are quite professional in presentation, with authors who profess or demonstrate vast experience.

Just a few years ago, unreliable websites were often riddled with typographical errors or burdened with amateurish design and graphics. But it’s increasingly easy to host websites that look polished and professional, which can make it hard to judge whether the site’s sponsors take seriously the responsibility to check and update their information. For the purpose of academic research, most private websites should be considered popular sources, which can be useful as sources of opinion but should generally not be relied on for authoritative information. (See  Popular vs. Scholarly Sources  for more information.)

It’s often useful to identify your source in the body of your paper (and not just in your citation or footnote); this identification is especially important when you use private websites. If you give a sense of what kind of web source you’re using, the reader will be better able to understand the context of your evidence. Private websites also raise issues of privacy, as some sites that require password access may not invite republication of their material in scholarly research. See  Special Demands of Internet Sources  for more information.

When using material from a private website, list by the author (if known), then by the title of the article or specific Webpage you’re using (if known), and the date of posting (if listed). Follow this by the title of the website, if applicable. If the site is part of an identifiable online group (like “Facebook” or “tumblr”), include that title next. Next, list the date that you accessed the site and the full URL—the Web address that begins with “http.”

Some of these details may be hard to identify. In the example above, for instance, it was not possible to determine when the specific section of the website was last updated. Only the date of access is given.

MLA: Martin, George R. R. “A Few More Last Words.”  Not a Blog .  8 May 2010. Livejournal. Web. 20 May 2015. < http://grrm.livejournal.com/152340> . [author, by last name.] [“title of entry.”] [ title of weblog .] [posting date.] [site sponsor or publisher.] [medium.] [date of access.] [.]

APA: Martin, G. R. R. (2010, May 8). A few more last words [Weblog post]. Retrieved May 20, 2015, from Livejournal:  http://grrm.livejournal.com/152340 [author, by last name, initial.] [(posting date).] [title of entry [format description].] [Weblog post.] [ Retrieved  date of access,] [ from  site sponsor or publisher:] [URL]

Chicago: 23. Martin, “Last Words.” [fn. #.] [author last name, “shortened title.”] [Shortened Chicago reference; see  More Notes on Chicago Style  for more information.]

Blogs—an abbreviation of “weblogs”—are websites or areas of websites devoted to dated reflections by the site’s author. Many blogs are hosted on or presented as private websites where the author claims little special expertise or no professional affiliation relevant to the blog’s topic. In these cases, see the discussion of  Private Websites , and use the same care when evaluating the material you access.

But blogs are increasingly included as a feature of  organization websites  (Amazon.com, for instance, now invites authors to post blogs on their work) or as elements of  online versions of print periodicals  (the  New York Times  website hosts several blogs by reporters and editors). When using a blog that’s identified with a larger journal or organization, follow the advice listed for those general sources.

Even when hosted by a recognized organization, most blogs should probably be treated as popular rather than scholarly sources. See  Scholarly vs. Popular Sources  for more information.

The example above also lists “Livejournal” as the site’s sponsor. This information might be considered analogous to the organization that sponsors an  organization website . But in some cases, it may not be necessary to give the site sponsor. Livejournal, for instance, does not supervise posters’ comments very closely. A sponsor like “Facebook” has more rules and some restrictions to access, but is still doesn’t stand behind the material as much as an  online journal  would. When deciding whether to include the site sponsor, use your judgment: if the blog pursues a theme in common with the sponsor, list the sponsor.

Note: It’s often useful to identify your source in the body of your paper (and not just in your citation or footnote); this identification is especially important when you use blogs. If you give a sense of what kind of web source you’re using, the reader will be better able to understand the context of your evidence. See  Special Demands of Internet Sources  for more information.

The formats below cover the most common ways to cite video clips that were published online (on sites like YouTube and Vimeo). Video that was first published elsewhere but accessed online (on sites like Netflix and Hulu) is cited differently. See the notes that follow for more information.

MLA: TED. “Philip Zimbardo: The Psychology of Evil.” Online video clip.  YouTube . YouTube, 23 Sept. 2008. Web. 8 Aug 2015. < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsFEV35tWsg>  [author’s name or screen name.] [“title of video.”] [media type.] [ name of website .] [site sponsor or publisher,] [posting date.] [medium.] [date of access.] [.]

APA: TED. (2008, Sept. 23).  Philip Zimbardo: The psychology of evil [Video file]. Retrieved Aug. 8, 2015, from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsFEV35tWsg [author’s name or screen name.] [(posting date).] [ title of entry [format description].] [ Retrieved  date of access,] [ from  URL]

Note: If you know both the author’s name and his or her screen name (and they are different from one another), APA style cites the author’s name first (last name, first initial) followed by the screen name in square brackets (e.g. Booker, J [jbook].).

Chicago: 24. TED, “Philip Zimbardo.” [fn. #.] [author name or screen name, “shortened title.”] [Shortened Chicago reference; see  More Notes on Chicago Style  for more information.]

Like other film and video formats, conventions for citing online video are less fixed than those for print or other kinds of online sources. The citation for a video clip that was first published online typically attributes the clip to the individual who posted it on the Internet. Video that was first published elsewhere before being posted online, is usually attributed to the individuals most responsible for making it—the director or performers. See the citation formats for Film & Video and Television, Radio Program, or Music Video for more information.   Depending on who seems most responsible for the existence of the video you’re citing, you may choose to attribute an online video to its creators rather than the individual who posted it. For example, a film that is released online or an ongoing web series, may be more accurately attributed to the director or actors than the person who uploaded it to the Internet. For citation formats that attribute video to the actors or director, see Film & Video and Television, Radio Program, or Music Video .  

MLA: Levy, Michael. “Re: your canon?” Science Fiction Research Association, 19 Apr. 2006. Web. 26 June 2006. < sfra-l@wiz.cath.vt.edu (link sends e-mail) >. [author, by last name.] [“title or subject line.”] [discussion group,] [posting date.] [medium.] [date of access.] [.]

APA: Levy, M. (2006, April 19). Re: your canon? [Electronic mailing list message]. Retrieved June 26, 2006 from  sfra-l@wiz.cath.vt.edu (link sends e-mail) . [author, by last name, initial.] [(posting date).] [title or subject line [format description].] [ Retrieved  date of access  from  address.]

Chicago: 24. Levy, “Re: your canon?” [fn. #.] [author last name, ”title or subject heading.”] [Shortened Chicago reference; see  More Notes on Chicago Style  for more information.]

There are many electronic forums that allow users with a specific interest or affiliation to discuss topics with each other. Some of these are restricted to members of a group, or of a specific course. (Many Yale courses, for instance, provide forum discussions through the Classesv2 server.) Other such discussions are open to any interested party. Although discussions limited to professionals in a field may be more authoritative, in general you should probably treat material from these forums as popular rather than scholarly sources. See  Scholarly vs. Popular Sources  for more information.

Note: Many such forums expect communications to be private. Be sure to check the group’s policies on reproduction of such material. Even if an FAQ or moderator seems to make reproduction permissible, a decent respect for privacy suggests that you secure the poster’s permission before making the material public.

If you use material from an electronic forum, list by author’s name. Follow that with the most specific identifying information you can give about the particular post. Depending on the type of discussion, there may be subject headings or specific message numbers on a given post. You may or may not be able to tell the posting date.

In MLA style, include the name of the sponsoring forum. Since most of these discussions do not supervise postings, do not put the sponsor name in italics. Follow this with the date you accessed the material. Even when membership is restricted to a particular organization, most listervs should probably be treated as popular rather than scholarly sources. See  Scholarly vs. Popular Sources  for more information.

The last item in your listing—the electronic address—brings up one point on which MLA and APA styles differ starkly: in APA, if the posting cannot be retrieved, you cite it in your paper as a personal communication and do not include it in your list of References. Even in MLA style, it’s better to cite the message in the form that’s most easily accessible to your reader: many listservs archive their messages on the web, for instance, even though the original postings are delivered by email. Try to include the archive address.

Also note: As discussed in  Signaling Sources , it’s often useful to identify your source in the body of your paper (and not just in your citation or footnote); this identification is especially important when you use listservs. If you give a sense of what kind of Websource you’re using, the reader will be better able to understand the context of your evidence. See  Special Demands of Internet Sources  for more information.

MLA: Donahue, Tiane. “Re: Your WPA Question.” Message to the author. 14 Dec. 2004. Email. [author, by last name.] [“title or subject line.”] [message recipient.] [message date.] [medium.]

APA: Do not include in list of References. Cite in your paper as a personal communication.

Chicago: 25. Tiane Donahue, “Re: Your WPA Question,” email message to author, December 14, 2000. [fn. #.] [author full name, “subject heading,”] [type of message,] [date of message.]

Note: Chicago style footnotes give full information for private messages, but does not list them in the Bibliography.

It’s probably obvious that the authority of material that comes in private communications varies greatly with the status of the source. What someone writes to you by email may be useful as a source of opinion, but can seldom be relied on as definitive information, unless you’re in correspondence with a recognized expert. And even in these cases, the informality of email makes most authors much less careful about checking facts and conclusions, rendering the information less authoritative. Most email messages should probably be treated as popular rather than scholarly sources. See  Scholarly vs. Popular Sources  for more information.

Note: Most people consider email to be private. Even if the message is sent to more than one recipient, a decent respect for privacy suggests that you secure the sender’s permission before making the material public. If you received the message as a forward, the obligation to seek permission is even more urgent, as the original author likely has no reason to expect you to use the message in your own work. See  Special Demands of Internet Sources  for more information.

If you do use material from an email, the format for listing in MLA style is fairly simple, as in the example above: Author, Subject, “Email to the author,” and Date.

In APA style, you do not include in your list of References any source that can’t be retrieved by your reader. If you use email in your paper, cite it as a personal communication in your text, and do not list it at the end. For Chicago style, private messages are given full citation in a footnote, but not included in the Bibliography.

Note: As discussed in the section on  Signaling Sources , it’s often useful to identify your source in the body of your paper (and not just in your citation or footnote); this identification is especially important when you use private messages. If you give a sense of what kind of source you’re using, the reader will be better able to understand the context of your evidence. See  Special Demands of Internet Sources  for more information.

MLA: “King Arthur.”  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia . Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 18 May 2015. Web. 20 May 2015. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur(link is external) >. [“page title.”] [ website name. ] [site sponsor or publisher,] [date of last revision.] [medium.] [date of access.] [.]

APA: King Arthur. (n.d.). In  Wikipedia . Retrieved July 26, 2006, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur(link is external) [page title.] [(“n.d.”).] [ In  website name.] [ Retrieved  date, from: URL]

Chicago: 26. “King Arthur.” [fn. #.] [“title.”] [Shortened Chicago reference; see  More Notes on Chicago Style  for more information.]

To list material from Wikipedia, you should review the advice for  organization websites . But Wikipedia merits additional attention because of its recent growth and popularity. Some professors will warn you not to use Wikipedia because they believe its information is unreliable. As a community project with no central review committee, Wikipedia certainly contains its share of incorrect information and uninformed opinion. And since it presents itself as an encyclopedia, Wikipedia can sometimes seem more trustworthy than the average website, even to writers who would be duly careful about  private websites  or  topic websites . In this sense, it should be treated as a popular rather than scholarly source. See  Popular vs. Scholarly Sources  for more information.

But the main problem with using Wikipedia as an important source in your research is not that it gets things wrong. Some of its contributors are leaders in their fields, and, besides, some print sources contain errors. The problem, instead, is that Wikipedia strives for a lower level of expertise than professors expect from Yale students. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is written for a common readership. But students in Yale courses are already consulting primary materials and learning from experts in the discipline. In this context, to rely on Wikipedia—even when the material is accurate—is to position your work as inexpert and immature.

If you use Wikipedia for general background, check several other sources before using the material in your essays. Some of the facts you find may be attributable to common knowledge (see  Common Knowledge  for more discussion). You may also be able to track opinions or deeper ideas back to their original sources. In many cases, your course readings will contain similar ideas in better, more quotable language. Many student writers are tempted to use Wikipedia for definitions of terms (the same way a beginning writer might quote a dictionary). But in most cases, a definition drawn or paraphrased from the primary course readings—or from other scholarly sources—will be more effective. See  Why Cite?  for more discussion of definitions and keyterms.

Of course, if you do use language or information from Wikipedia, you must cite it—to do otherwise constitutes plagiarism. The advice here is not to hide what Wikipedia contributes to your ideas, but rather to move beyond Wikipedia and write from a more knowledgeable, expert stance.

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MLA In-Text Citations: The Basics

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Guidelines for referring to the works of others in your text using MLA style are covered throughout the  MLA Handbook  and in chapter 7 of the  MLA Style Manual . Both books provide extensive examples, so it's a good idea to consult them if you want to become even more familiar with MLA guidelines or if you have a particular reference question.

Basic in-text citation rules

In MLA Style, referring to the works of others in your text is done using parenthetical citations . This method involves providing relevant source information in parentheses whenever a sentence uses a quotation or paraphrase. Usually, the simplest way to do this is to put all of the source information in parentheses at the end of the sentence (i.e., just before the period). However, as the examples below will illustrate, there are situations where it makes sense to put the parenthetical elsewhere in the sentence, or even to leave information out.

General Guidelines

• The source information required in a parenthetical citation depends (1) upon the source medium (e.g. print, web, DVD) and (2) upon the source’s entry on the Works Cited page.
• Any source information that you provide in-text must correspond to the source information on the Works Cited page. More specifically, whatever signal word or phrase you provide to your readers in the text must be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of the corresponding entry on the Works Cited page.

In-text citations: Author-page style

MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page. The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence. For example:

Both citations in the examples above, (263) and (Wordsworth 263), tell readers that the information in the sentence can be located on page 263 of a work by an author named Wordsworth. If readers want more information about this source, they can turn to the Works Cited page, where, under the name of Wordsworth, they would find the following information:

Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads . Oxford UP, 1967.

In-text citations for print sources with known author

For print sources like books, magazines, scholarly journal articles, and newspapers, provide a signal word or phrase (usually the author’s last name) and a page number. If you provide the signal word/phrase in the sentence, you do not need to include it in the parenthetical citation.

These examples must correspond to an entry that begins with Burke, which will be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of an entry on the Works Cited page:

Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method . University of California Press, 1966.

In-text citations for print sources by a corporate author

When a source has a corporate author, it is acceptable to use the name of the corporation followed by the page number for the in-text citation. You should also use abbreviations (e.g., nat'l for national) where appropriate, so as to avoid interrupting the flow of reading with overly long parenthetical citations.

In-text citations for sources with non-standard labeling systems

If a source uses a labeling or numbering system other than page numbers, such as a script or poetry, precede the citation with said label. When citing a poem, for instance, the parenthetical would begin with the word “line”, and then the line number or range. For example, the examination of William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” would be cited as such:

The speaker makes an ardent call for the exploration of the connection between the violence of nature and the divinity of creation. “In what distant deeps or skies. / Burnt the fire of thine eyes," they ask in reference to the tiger as they attempt to reconcile their intimidation with their relationship to creationism (lines 5-6).

Longer labels, such as chapters (ch.) and scenes (sc.), should be abbreviated.

In-text citations for print sources with no known author

When a source has no known author, use a shortened title of the work instead of an author name, following these guidelines.

Place the title in quotation marks if it's a short work (such as an article) or italicize it if it's a longer work (e.g. plays, books, television shows, entire Web sites) and provide a page number if it is available.

Titles longer than a standard noun phrase should be shortened into a noun phrase by excluding articles. For example, To the Lighthouse would be shortened to Lighthouse .

If the title cannot be easily shortened into a noun phrase, the title should be cut after the first clause, phrase, or punctuation:

In this example, since the reader does not know the author of the article, an abbreviated title appears in the parenthetical citation, and the full title of the article appears first at the left-hand margin of its respective entry on the Works Cited page. Thus, the writer includes the title in quotation marks as the signal phrase in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader directly to the source on the Works Cited page. The Works Cited entry appears as follows:

"The Impact of Global Warming in North America." Global Warming: Early Signs . 1999. www.climatehotmap.org/. Accessed 23 Mar. 2009.

If the title of the work begins with a quotation mark, such as a title that refers to another work, that quote or quoted title can be used as the shortened title. The single quotation marks must be included in the parenthetical, rather than the double quotation.

Parenthetical citations and Works Cited pages, used in conjunction, allow readers to know which sources you consulted in writing your essay, so that they can either verify your interpretation of the sources or use them in their own scholarly work.

Author-page citation for classic and literary works with multiple editions

Page numbers are always required, but additional citation information can help literary scholars, who may have a different edition of a classic work, like Marx and Engels's  The Communist Manifesto . In such cases, give the page number of your edition (making sure the edition is listed in your Works Cited page, of course) followed by a semicolon, and then the appropriate abbreviations for volume (vol.), book (bk.), part (pt.), chapter (ch.), section (sec.), or paragraph (par.). For example:

Author-page citation for works in an anthology, periodical, or collection

When you cite a work that appears inside a larger source (for instance, an article in a periodical or an essay in a collection), cite the author of the  internal source (i.e., the article or essay). For example, to cite Albert Einstein's article "A Brief Outline of the Theory of Relativity," which was published in  Nature  in 1921, you might write something like this:

See also our page on documenting periodicals in the Works Cited .

Citing authors with same last names

Sometimes more information is necessary to identify the source from which a quotation is taken. For instance, if two or more authors have the same last name, provide both authors' first initials (or even the authors' full name if different authors share initials) in your citation. For example:

Citing a work by multiple authors

For a source with two authors, list the authors’ last names in the text or in the parenthetical citation:

Corresponding Works Cited entry:

Best, David, and Sharon Marcus. “Surface Reading: An Introduction.” Representations , vol. 108, no. 1, Fall 2009, pp. 1-21. JSTOR, doi:10.1525/rep.2009.108.1.1

For a source with three or more authors, list only the first author’s last name, and replace the additional names with et al.

Franck, Caroline, et al. “Agricultural Subsidies and the American Obesity Epidemic.” American Journal of Preventative Medicine , vol. 45, no. 3, Sept. 2013, pp. 327-333.

Citing multiple works by the same author

If you cite more than one work by an author, include a shortened title for the particular work from which you are quoting to distinguish it from the others. Put short titles of books in italics and short titles of articles in quotation marks.

Citing two articles by the same author :

Citing two books by the same author :

Additionally, if the author's name is not mentioned in the sentence, format your citation with the author's name followed by a comma, followed by a shortened title of the work, and, when appropriate, the page number(s):

Citing multivolume works

If you cite from different volumes of a multivolume work, always include the volume number followed by a colon. Put a space after the colon, then provide the page number(s). (If you only cite from one volume, provide only the page number in parentheses.)

Citing the Bible

In your first parenthetical citation, you want to make clear which Bible you're using (and underline or italicize the title), as each version varies in its translation, followed by book (do not italicize or underline), chapter, and verse. For example:

If future references employ the same edition of the Bible you’re using, list only the book, chapter, and verse in the parenthetical citation:

John of Patmos echoes this passage when describing his vision (Rev. 4.6-8).

Citing indirect sources

Sometimes you may have to use an indirect source. An indirect source is a source cited within another source. For such indirect quotations, use "qtd. in" to indicate the source you actually consulted. For example:

Note that, in most cases, a responsible researcher will attempt to find the original source, rather than citing an indirect source.

Citing transcripts, plays, or screenplays

Sources that take the form of a dialogue involving two or more participants have special guidelines for their quotation and citation. Each line of dialogue should begin with the speaker's name written in all capitals and indented half an inch. A period follows the name (e.g., JAMES.) . After the period, write the dialogue. Each successive line after the first should receive an additional indentation. When another person begins speaking, start a new line with that person's name indented only half an inch. Repeat this pattern each time the speaker changes. You can include stage directions in the quote if they appear in the original source.

Conclude with a parenthetical that explains where to find the excerpt in the source. Usually, the author and title of the source can be given in a signal phrase before quoting the excerpt, so the concluding parenthetical will often just contain location information like page numbers or act/scene indicators.

Here is an example from O'Neill's  The Iceman Cometh.

WILLIE. (Pleadingly) Give me a drink, Rocky. Harry said it was all right. God, I need a drink.

ROCKY. Den grab it. It's right under your nose.

WILLIE. (Avidly) Thanks. (He takes the bottle with both twitching hands and tilts it to his lips and gulps down the whiskey in big swallows.) (1.1)

Citing non-print or sources from the Internet

With more and more scholarly work published on the Internet, you may have to cite sources you found in digital environments. While many sources on the Internet should not be used for scholarly work (reference the OWL's  Evaluating Sources of Information  resource), some Web sources are perfectly acceptable for research. When creating in-text citations for electronic, film, or Internet sources, remember that your citation must reference the source on your Works Cited page.

Sometimes writers are confused with how to craft parenthetical citations for electronic sources because of the absence of page numbers. However, these sorts of entries often do not require a page number in the parenthetical citation. For electronic and Internet sources, follow the following guidelines:

• Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation (e.g. author name, article name, website name, film name).
• Do not provide paragraph numbers or page numbers based on your Web browser’s print preview function.
• Unless you must list the Web site name in the signal phrase in order to get the reader to the appropriate entry, do not include URLs in-text. Only provide partial URLs such as when the name of the site includes, for example, a domain name, like  CNN.com  or  Forbes.com,  as opposed to writing out http://www.cnn.com or http://www.forbes.com.

Miscellaneous non-print sources

Two types of non-print sources you may encounter are films and lectures/presentations:

In the two examples above “Herzog” (a film’s director) and “Yates” (a presentor) lead the reader to the first item in each citation’s respective entry on the Works Cited page:

Herzog, Werner, dir. Fitzcarraldo . Perf. Klaus Kinski. Filmverlag der Autoren, 1982.

Yates, Jane. "Invention in Rhetoric and Composition." Gaps Addressed: Future Work in Rhetoric and Composition, CCCC, Palmer House Hilton, 2002. Address.

Electronic sources

Electronic sources may include web pages and online news or magazine articles:

In the first example (an online magazine article), the writer has chosen not to include the author name in-text; however, two entries from the same author appear in the Works Cited. Thus, the writer includes both the author’s last name and the article title in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader to the appropriate entry on the Works Cited page (see below).

In the second example (a web page), a parenthetical citation is not necessary because the page does not list an author, and the title of the article, “MLA Formatting and Style Guide,” is used as a signal phrase within the sentence. If the title of the article was not named in the sentence, an abbreviated version would appear in a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence. Both corresponding Works Cited entries are as follows:

Taylor, Rumsey. "Fitzcarraldo." Slant , 13 Jun. 2003, www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/fitzcarraldo/. Accessed 29 Sep. 2009. 

"MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The Purdue OWL , 2 Aug. 2016, owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/. Accessed 2 April 2018.

Multiple citations

To cite multiple sources in the same parenthetical reference, separate the citations by a semi-colon:

Time-based media sources

When creating in-text citations for media that has a runtime, such as a movie or podcast, include the range of hours, minutes and seconds you plan to reference. For example: (00:02:15-00:02:35).

When a citation is not needed

Common sense and ethics should determine your need for documenting sources. You do not need to give sources for familiar proverbs, well-known quotations, or common knowledge (For example, it is expected that U.S. citizens know that George Washington was the first President.). Remember that citing sources is a rhetorical task, and, as such, can vary based on your audience. If you’re writing for an expert audience of a scholarly journal, for example, you may need to deal with expectations of what constitutes “common knowledge” that differ from common norms.

Other Sources

The MLA Handbook describes how to cite many different kinds of authors and content creators. However, you may occasionally encounter a source or author category that the handbook does not describe, making the best way to proceed can be unclear.

In these cases, it's typically acceptable to apply the general principles of MLA citation to the new kind of source in a way that's consistent and sensible. A good way to do this is to simply use the standard MLA directions for a type of source that resembles the source you want to cite.

You may also want to investigate whether a third-party organization has provided directions for how to cite this kind of source. For example, Norquest College provides guidelines for citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers⁠ —an author category that does not appear in the MLA Handbook . In cases like this, however, it's a good idea to ask your instructor or supervisor whether using third-party citation guidelines might present problems.

Essay Writing: Cite a Website

• Essay Writing Basics
• Purdue OWL Page on Writing Your Thesis This link opens in a new window
• Paragraphs and Transitions
• How to Tell if a Website is Legitimate This link opens in a new window
• Formatting Your References Page
• Cite a Website
• Common Grammatical and Mechanical Errors
• Additional Resources
• Proofread Before You Submit Your Paper
• Structuring the 5-Paragraph Essay

Cite a  YouTube Video , a  Website  or a Journal Article

(Remember ALL citations are formatted in APA 7th edition)

Cite a Web Page With No Author

How do you reference a web page that lists no author?

From the  APA Style Blog .

When there is no author for a web page, the title moves to the first position of the reference entry like this:

All 33 Chile miners freed in flawless rescue. (2010, October 13). MSNBC.  Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/-id/39625809/ns/world_news-americas/

Cite in text the first few words of the reference list entry (usually the title) and the year. Use double quotation marks around the title or abbreviated title.: ("All 33 Chile Miners," 2010).

Note:  Articles found on the web, like the example above, are not italicized in the reference entry and are not italicized but enclosed in quotations in the in-text citation, just like a newspaper or magazine article.

Other APA Style Resources

APA Basics  LibGuide

APA Formatting   at Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) - 

Everything you ever wanted to know about APA formatting (from the famous Purdue OWL ).

• APA Style Blog The APA Style Blog is the official companion to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition.
• BibMe How to Cite Anything in APA Format
• EasyBib General Rules for APA Style References

Cite a YouTube Video

Use the name of the account that uploaded the video as the author.

—---------------

Full Citation (for the References page):

Jidenna. (2020, June 3). The Lit Review: Qualified Immunity [Video].

           YouTube. https://youtu.be/V0_3HTc0NCU  

---------------

In-text citations (when you refer to the video in the text of your paper) :

Parenthetical in-text citation:  A special episode of The Lit Review was dedicated to the doctrine of qualified immunity (Jidenna, 2020).

Narrative in-text citation:

The panelists interviewed attorney Kristen Clarke, who enumerated three tools to combat the abuse of qualified immunity: 1.) local police departments holding individual officers accountable; 2.) criminal prosecution of officers who murder citizens by local government agencies; and 3.) civil investigation and prosecution of officers who abuse their power (Jidenna, 2020).

For more info, visit the official APA Style Blog here:  How to Cite an Online Video (YouTube) in APA 7 Format

Citing Journal Articles, Websites & Videos, and Creating In-Text Citations

• Quick Sheet - Citing Journal Articles, Websites & Videos, and Creating In-Text Citations Click Acrobat Icon above to view full document in a new tab.

A Monroe College Research Guide

                 THIS RESEARCH OR "LIBGUIDE" WAS PRODUCED BY THE LIBRARIANS OF MONROE COLLEGE                    

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Cite a Website in MLA

Don't let plagiarism errors spoil your paper, citing a website in mla, how to create an mla website citation:.

When citing a website, you’re often actually citing a specific page on a website. You’re not actually citing the entire website.

Here is the most common way to cite a page on a website:

• Start the citation with the name of the author who wrote the information on the page. If there isn’t an author listed, do not include this information in the citation. Start the citation with the title.
• The title of the individual page is placed in quotation marks, followed by a period.
• Next, place the name of the website in italics, followed by a comma.
• If the name of the publisher matches the name of the author or the name of the title, do not include the publisher’s information in the citation.
• The date the page or website was published comes next.
• End the citation with the URL or DOI. When including the URL, copy the URL directly from the address bar or link in your browser window.

Last name, First name of author. “Title of Web Page.” Title of Website , Publisher, Date published, URL.

Rothfeld, Lindsay. “Smarter Education: The Rise of Big Data in the Classroom.” Mashable, 3 Sept. 2014, mashable.com/2014/09/03/education-data-video/#hViqdPbFbgqH.

You can usually leave out http:// or https:// from URLs unless you want to hyperlink them. For DOIs, use http:// or https:// before the DOI: https://doi.org/xx.xxxx/xxx.xxxx.xxxx.

If you’re still confused and feeling the urge to type “How to cite a website MLA” into Google, try out our free generator at the top of this page. Our citation generator MLA site is easy to use!

Social media:

If the user’s handle and real name are similar, you may include the real name and leave out the handle as long as a URL is also included. If the user’s real name and handle are different, include the hand in brackets after the real name.

Gates, Melinda. “Today, Bill and I were deeply humbled to accept France’s Legion of Honour award on behalf of all our foundation’s partners and grantees.” Twitter, 21 Apr. 2017, twitter.com/melindagates/status/855535625713459200.

Sandler, Adam. “California Strong celebrity softball game this Sunday at Pepperdine. All proceeds go to the victims of the wildfires and shooting in Thousand Oaks.” Facebook, 11 Jan. 2019, www.facebook.com/Sandler/.

Mizuhara, Kiko [@I_am_kiko]. “@vivi_mag_official shot by my sis @ashley_yuka.” Instagram, 25 June 2020, www.instagram.com/p/CB27SYahBpo.

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MLA In-text Citations and Sample Essay 9th Edition

Listing your sources at the end of your essay in the Works Cited is only the first step in complete and effective documentation. Proper citation of sources is a two-part process . You must also cite, in the body of your essay, the source your paraphrased information or where directly quoted material came from. These citations within the essay are called in-text citations . You must cite all quoted, paraphrased, or summarized words, ideas, and facts from sources. Without in-text citations, you are in danger of plagiarism , even if you have listed your sources at the end of the essay. In-text citations point the reader to the sources’ information in the works cited page, so the in-text citation should be the first item listed in the source’s citation on the works cited page, which is usually the author’s last name (or the title if there is no author) and the page number, if provided.

Two Ways to Cite Your Sources In-text

Parenthetical citation.

Cite your source in parentheses at the end of quoted or paraphrased material.

Example with a page number: In regards to paraphrasing, "It is important to remember to use in-text citations for your paraphrased information, as well as your directly quoted material" (Habib 7).

Example without a page number : Paraphrasing is "often the best choice because direct quotes should be reserved for source material that is especially well-written in style and/or clarity" (Ruiz).

Signal Phrase

Within the sentence, through the use of a "signal phrase" which signals to the reader the specific source the idea or quote came from. Include the page number(s) in parentheses at the end of the sentence, if provided.

Example with a page number: According to Habib, "It is important to remember to use in-text citations for your paraphrased information, as well as your directly quoted material" (7).

Example without a page number: According to Ruiz, paraphrasing is "often the best choice because direct quotes should be reserved for source material that is especially well-written in style and/or clarity."

*See our handout "Signal Phrases" for more examples and information on effective ways to use signal phrases for in-text citations.

Do you need to include a page number in your in-text citation?

Printed materials such as books, magazines, journals, or internet and digital sources with PDF files that show an actual printed page number need to have a page number in the citation.

Internet and digital sources with a continuously scrolling page without a page number do not need a page number in the citation.

Commonly used in-text citations in parentheses

Notes on Quotes

Block quotation format.

When using long quotations that are over four lines of prose or over three lines of poetry in length, you will need to use block quotation format. Block format is indented one inch from the margin (you can hit the "tab" button twice to move it one inch). Additionally, block quotes do not use quotation marks, and the parenthetical citation comes after the period of the last sentence. Please see the following sample essay for an example block quote.

Signal Phrase Examples and Ideas

Please see the following sample essay for different kinds of signal phrases and parenthetical in-text citations, which correspond with the sample Works Cited page at the end. The Writing Center also has a handout on signal phrases with many different verb options.

Learn more about the MLA Works Cited page by reviewing this handout .

For information on STLCC's academic integrity policy, check out this website .

Home / Guides / Citation Guides / MLA Format / How to Cite an Essay in MLA

How to Cite an Essay in MLA

The guidelines for citing an essay in MLA format are similar to those for citing a chapter in a book. Include the author of the essay, the title of the essay, the name of the collection if the essay belongs to one, the editor of the collection or other contributors, the publication information, and the page number(s).

Citing an Essay

Mla essay citation structure.

Last, First M. “Essay Title.” Collection Title, edited by First M. Last, Publisher, year published, page numbers. Website Title , URL (if applicable).

MLA Essay Citation Example

Gupta, Sanjay. “Balancing and Checking.” Essays on Modern Democracy, edited by Bob Towsky, Brook Stone Publishers, 1996, pp. 36-48. Essay Database, www . databaseforessays.org/modern/modern-democracy.

MLA Essay In-text Citation Structure

(Last Name Page #)

MLA Essay In-text Citation Example

Click here to cite an essay via an EasyBib citation form.

MLA Formatting Guide

MLA Formatting

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• Bibliography
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• et al Usage
• In-text Citations
• Paraphrasing
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• Sample Paper
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• MLA 8 Updates
• MLA 9 Updates
• View MLA Guide

Citation Examples

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• View all MLA Examples

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To cite your sources in an essay in MLA style, you need to have basic information including the author’s name(s), chapter title, book title, editor(s), publication year, publisher, and page numbers. The templates for in-text citations and a works-cited-list entry for essay sources and some examples are given below:

In-text citation template and example:

For citations in prose, use the first name and surname of the author on the first occurrence. For subsequent citations, use only the surname(s). In parenthetical citations, always use only the surname of the author(s).

Citation in prose:

First mention: Annette Wheeler Cafarelli

Subsequent occurrences: Wheeler Cafarelli

Parenthetical:

….(Wheeler Cafarelli).

Works-cited-list entry template and example:

The title of the chapter is enclosed in double quotation marks and uses title case. The book or collection title is given in italics and uses title case.

Surname, First Name. “Title of the Chapter.” Title of the Book , edited by Editor(s) Name, Publisher, Publication Year, page range.

Cafarelli, Annette Wheeler. “Rousseau and British Romanticism: Women and British Romanticism.” Cultural Interactions in the Romantic Age: Critical Essays in Comparative Literature , edited by Gregory Maertz. State U of New York P, 1998, pp. 125–56.

To cite an essay in MLA style, you need to have basic information including the author(s), the essay title, the book title, editor(s), publication year, publisher, and page numbers. The templates for citations in prose, parenthetical citations, and works-cited-list entries for an essay by multiple authors, and some examples, are given below:

For citations in prose, use the first name and surname of the author (e.g., Mary Strine).

For sources with two authors, use both full author names in prose (e.g., Mary Strine and Beth Radick).

For sources with three or more authors, use the first name and surname of the first author followed by “and others” or “and colleagues” (e.g., Mary Strine and others). In subsequent citations, use only the surname of the first author followed by “and others” or “and colleagues” (e.g., Strine and others).

In parenthetical citations, use only the author’s surname. For sources with two authors, use two surnames (e.g., Strine and Radick). For sources with three or more author names, use the first author’s surname followed by “et al.”

First mention: Mary Strine…

Subsequent mention: Strine…

First mention: Mary Strine and Beth Radick…

Subsequent mention: Strine and Radick…

First mention: Mary Strine and colleagues …. or Mary Strine and others

Subsequent occurrences: Strine and colleagues …. or Strine and others

…. (Strine).

….(Strine and Radick).

….(Strine et al.).

The title of the essay is enclosed in double quotation marks and uses title case. The book or collection title is given in italics and uses title case.

Surname, First Name, et al. “Title of the Essay.” Title of the Book , edited by Editor(s) Name, Publisher, Publication Year, page range.

Strine, Mary M., et al. “Research in Interpretation and Performance Studies: Trends, Issues, Priorities.” Speech Communication: Essays to Commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Speech Communication Association , edited by Gerald M. Phillips and Julia T. Wood, Southern Illinois UP, 1990, pp. 181–204.

MLA Citation Examples

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Free MLA Citation Generator

Generate accurate citations in MLA format automatically, with MyBib!

😕 What is an MLA Citation Generator?

An MLA citation generator is a software tool designed to automatically create academic citations in the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation format. The generator will take information such as document titles, author, and URLs as in input, and output fully formatted citations that can be inserted into the Works Cited page of an MLA-compliant academic paper.

The citations on a Works Cited page show the external sources that were used to write the main body of the academic paper, either directly as references and quotes, or indirectly as ideas.

👩‍🎓 Who uses an MLA Citation Generator?

MLA style is most often used by middle school and high school students in preparation for transition to college and further education. Ironically, MLA style is not actually used all that often beyond middle and high school, with APA (American Psychological Association) style being the favored style at colleges across the country.

It is also important at this level to learn why it's critical to cite sources, not just how to cite them.

🙌 Why should I use a Citation Generator?

Writing citations manually is time consuming and error prone. Automating this process with a citation generator is easy, straightforward, and gives accurate results. It's also easier to keep citations organized and in the correct order.

The Works Cited page contributes to the overall grade of a paper, so it is important to produce accurately formatted citations that follow the guidelines in the official MLA Handbook .

⚙️ How do I use MyBib's MLA Citation Generator?

It's super easy to create MLA style citations with our MLA Citation Generator. Scroll back up to the generator at the top of the page and select the type of source you're citing. Books, journal articles, and webpages are all examples of the types of sources our generator can cite automatically. Then either search for the source, or enter the details manually in the citation form.

The generator will produce a formatted MLA citation that can be copied and pasted directly into your document, or saved to MyBib as part of your overall Works Cited page (which can be downloaded fully later!).

MyBib supports the following for MLA style:

Daniel is a qualified librarian, former teacher, and citation expert. He has been contributing to MyBib since 2018.

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Watch CBS News

CDK cyberattack shuts down auto dealerships across the U.S. Here's what to know.

By Megan Cerullo

Edited By Aimee Picchi

Updated on: June 21, 2024 / 5:15 PM EDT / CBS News

CDK Global, a company that provides auto dealerships across the U.S. with software for managing sales and other services, was shut down for a third straight day Friday after cyberattacks crippled the platform. 

The outage is disrupting roughly 15,000 car sellers that depend on CDK's dealer management software to run their businesses, including vehicle sales. Some dealership employees have resorted to pen and paper to handle transactions, but said most deals had ground to a halt. CDK has not indicated when its systems will be back up and running, but suggested the outage could last several days. 

"We are actively investigating a cyber incident," a CDK spokesperson told CBS News. "Out of an abundance of caution and concern for our customers, we have shut down most of our systems and are working diligently to get everything up and running as quickly as possible." 

CDK, which said it had restored some services on Wednesday, told CBS MoneyWatch on Thursday afternoon that its systems were again offline after it suffered another cyberattack. 

"Late in the evening of June 19, we experienced an additional cyber incident and proactively shut down most of our systems," a CDK spokesperson said. "In partnership with third-party experts, we are assessing the impact and providing regular updates to our customers. We remain vigilant in our efforts to reinstate our services and get our dealers back to business as usual as quickly as possible."

Calls to a CDK customer support hotline produced a continuous busy signal. But the company's automated recording said the outage could affect dealerships for days, according to  PC Mag . The message told callers, "At this time, we do not have an estimated time frame for resolution and therefore our dealers' systems will not be available likely for several days," the publication reported.

The message also warned callers that "bad actors" posing as CDK support staff were trying to obtain customers' credentials in what are known as phishing attacks, according to The Associated Press . 

The number of cyberattacks has been on the rise in the last year, with more than 3,200 data breaches in 2023, a 78% jump from the prior year, according to a new study from data firm  SOAX . Those breaches impacted more than 65 million victims last year, it added.

What is CDK? 

CDK's dealer management system, or DMS, lets car vendors operate their business, including handling payroll, inventory, customer relations and office operations. The technology also enables dealers to line car buyers line up with financing and insurance.

On its website, it also touts its cybersecurity capabilities. "CDK Cybersecurity Solutions provide a three-tiered cybersecurity strategy to prevent, protect and respond to cyberattacks so you can defend your dealership," it says. 

Brookfield Business Partners, a Toronto-based private equity firm, acquired the company in 2022 in a  deal  valued at more than $8 billion.

When did the cyberattack begin?

The cyberattack on CDK Global began Tuesday evening, Bleeping Computer , a cybersecurity news site, reported Wednesday, taking the 15,000 car dealerships it serves offline.  

As mentioned above, CDK said it suffered another cyberattack on Wednesday evening. It is not currently known who, or what group, is behind the cyberattacks. 

Mike Stanton, CEO of the National Automobile Dealers Association, said in a statement on Friday that "dealers are very committed to protecting their customer information and are actively seeking information from CDK to determine the nature and scope of the cyber incident so they can respond appropriately."

How are dealerships responding?

Some dealerships appeared to get creative to continue doing business during the outage. Dealership employees posted about the outage on  Reddit  Wednesday, sharing that they were relying on spreadsheets and sticky notes to sell customers small parts and make repairs, but that they weren't making any large transactions. 

One employee asked other dealership employees, "How many of you are standing around because your whole shop runs on CDK?" under the heading "CDK down," with users in Wisconsin and Colorado confirming their dealership transaction systems were offline. 

—The Associated Press contributed to this report.

• Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
• Cyberattack

Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.

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Citation Examples | Books, Articles, Websites & More

Published on April 9, 2021 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on January 17, 2024.

The most common citation styles are APA and MLA . To cite a source in these styles, you need a brief in-text citation and a full reference.

Use the interactive tool to understand how a citation is structured and see examples for common source types .

As well as switching between styles and sources, you can explore how a citation looks when there are multiple authors, different editions, no publication date, and other common scenarios.

If you’re still not sure how to cite your source correctly, dive into our comprehensive articles. For each source type, we provide a range of examples in APA , MLA , and Chicago style .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2024, January 17). Citation Examples | Books, Articles, Websites & More. Scribbr. Retrieved June 25, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/citing-sources/citation-example/

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