Citing a Web Article in an Essay: Why It Matters and How to Do It

• Table of contentsCiting online articles

• Citing web pages with no author or date

• Citing an entire website

• Publishers in MLA website citations

• Frequently asked questions about MLA style

The title of an article is not italicized in MLA style, but placed in quotation marks. This applies to articles from journals, newspapers, websites, or any other publication. Use italics for the title of the source where the article was published. For example:

how to cite a web article in an essay

Download

APA style has specific rules for citing works by multiple authors. Use the following guidelines to determine how to correctly cite works by multiple authors in text. For more information on citing works by multiple authors see the APA Style and Grammar Guidelines page on in-text citation.

MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.

For an individual page on a Web site, list the author or alias if known, followed by an indication of the specific page or article being referenced. Usually, the title of the page or article appears in a header at the top of the page. Follow this with the information covered above for entire Web sites. If the publisher is the same as the website name, only list it once.

If the work cited is available on the web only, then provide the name of the artist, the title of the work, and then follow the citation format for a website. If the work is posted via a username, use that username for the author.

For all online scholarly journals, provide the author(s) name(s), the name of the article in quotation marks, the title of the publication in italics, all volume and issue numbers, and the year of publication. Include a DOI if available, otherwise provide a URL or permalink to help readers locate the source.

MLA requires a page range for articles that appear in Scholarly Journals. If the journal you are citing appears exclusively in an online format (i.e. there is no corresponding print publication) that does not make use of page numbers, indicate the URL or other location information.

Cite articles in online scholarly journals that also appear in print as you would a scholarly journal in print, including the page range of the article. Provide the URL and the date of access.

I found a very useful website and cited a lot of information from it in my paper. But how do I write an in-text citation for content I found on a website? Do I just put the URL in the sentence where I cite the information?

It can be confusing to determine who the author of a website or webpage is. Often, the author is a group or agency rather than a particular individual. For example, the author of the position statement cited above is the American Nurses Association. If the website or webpage truly does not have an author, substitute the title of the page for the author in the in-text citation and reference list entry (see this post on missing reference pieces for examples of how to do this).

In text, you can cite these references separately as usual (e.g., American Nurses Association, 1991b), or you can combine citations with the same author if desired. Simply state the author once and then provide the years of the applicable references in chronological order, separated by commas.

Note: When there are no visible page numbers or paragraph numbers, you may cite the section heading and the number of the paragraph in that section to identify where your quote came from.

Note: When there are no visible page numbers or paragraph numbers, you may cite the section heading and the number of the paragraph in that section to identify where your quote came from. In this example, there is only one paragraph under the specific heading, so no paragraph number is needed.

If you are citing a print magazine essay republished on a website, follow the MLA format template and list the website as the container. Information about the original publication is optional and so may be provided in the optional-element slot at the end of the entry. You could also use the optional-element slot in the middle of the entry to provide the year of original publication. Or you could cite the website by itself without providing any information about the original. The examples below show three ways of citing a print essay republished on a website:

Note: Cite an online source as a website only if no other type of source applies to it. For instance, many magazines and newspapers publish articles on their websites - in cases like this, you would cite the article as if it were an online magazines or newspaper article (not a website article). This holds true for journal articles, conference procedures, social media posts, blog posts, online videos, etc. You may need to check the APA manual or ask a librarian to see if your type of source is listed.

Different formats are used for other kinds of online source, such as articles, social media posts and multimedia content. You can generate accurate Harvard references for all kinds of sources with our free reference generator:

• Table of contentsOnline articles

• Social media posts

• Images, videos and podcasts

• Referencing websites with missing information

• Frequently asked questions about Harvard website references

Blog posts and online newspaper articles are both referenced in the same format: include the title of the article in quotation marks, the name of the blog or newspaper in italics, and the date of publication.

Online videos, such as those on YouTube, Instagram, Vimeo and Dailymotion, are cited similarly to general web pages. Where a video is uploaded under the name of an individual, write the name in the usual format. Otherwise, write the username of the uploader as it appears on the site.

Note: Review this source carefully! You may need to follow the citation structure for a news article, magazine article, blog post, journal article etc. Use the format that best describes your source.

Citation management tools allow a user to organize and retrieve information, such as citations for books, articles, and Web sites, by interfacing with library databases. The citation manager then works with word-processing software to insert properly formatted footnotes or citations into a paper and create a properly formatted bibliography.

There are several accepted ways to cite materials in a bibliography or on a works-cited page, and styles are constantly evolving. Many history professors prefer students use The Chicago Manual of Style, while high school teachers and other professors often allow the use of Turabian. Certain disciplines in the humanities encourage the use of the MLA Style Manual for graduate students and academics or the MLA Handbook for high school and undergraduates. Ask your teacher or professor which style guide or edition is preferred by your school or institution. Common style guides include:

If you want to cite an interview, email, chat, text message or other personal communication, you only need to do so as a parenthetical citation in the body of your paper; you do NOT need to include it in your References.

When creating a full citation for an e-book for the bibliography at the end of your paper, you may choose to cite the entire e-book, in which case, no page, paragraph, chapter, line, or section numbers are required.

However, if you only consulted one chapter or section of an e-book, you may want to cite just that specific part. This is especially helpful if your e-book is an anthology, collected works, or collection of essays with many different authors and you plan to cite two different authors/chapters from the same e-book within your paper.

Paraphrasing or summarizing the main findings or takeaways from a research article is the preferred method of citing sources in an APA paper. Always include the last name of the author(s) and the year of the article, so your reader can find the full citation in the reference list.

In Word, you can easily add citations when writing a document where you need to cite your sources, such as a research paper. Citations can be added in various formats, including APA, Chicago-style, GOST, IEEE, ISO 690, and MLA. Afterwards, you can create a bibliography of the sources you used to write your paper.

If you open a document that includes citations, the sources for those citations appear under Current List. All the sources that you have cited, either in previous documents or in the current document, appear under Master List.

Ask the professor which format she prefers, if she has not already announced her preference. Each format assembles reference information in a distinct way, and some professors will deduct points from essays that do not follow the style guide they expect students to use. Also, ask if she wants a URL (Web address) included for each website citation. Some style guides no longer require writers to include URLs, but many professors require them anyway. 2ff7e9595c