Citation Guide: Websites

  • Basic citation for a freely available Website. If a website doesn’t list all of this information, just skip what you can’t find and move on to the next component.

Generic Format

This is the overall format of a website citation. If you cannot find all of this information for a given site, just leave out the missing pieces.
Author last name, author first name. "Title of article." Title of the Website. Name of the Sponsoring Organization, Date information was posted or updated, URL (/Page/4861/without http:/ or www.)

Internal Citation

(Author's name or shortened title)

Example 1 (Missing website title)

No overall title was found on the site, so only the organization is given in the citation.
Hollmichel, Stefanie. "The Reading Brain: Differences Between Digital and Print." So Many Books, 25 April 2013, somanybooksblog.com/2013/4/25/the-reading-brain-differences-between-digital-and-print/.

Internal Citation

(Author's name)
(Hollmichel)

Example 2 (No author or date)

No author or posting date were found on the site, so those items are left out of the citation. The internal citation lists the shortened title instead of author.
"Abraham Lincoln Biography." Bio. The Biography Channel, biography.com/people/abraham-lincoln-9382540.

Internal Citation

(Shortened title)
("Abraham Lincoln")