Citing Websites in APA Format

Hi everyone!

This week we're talking about how to create a bibliography. We will be using APA format. Today and tomorrow we will look at citations for websites. Next week we will discuss how to format citations for books and other publications.

Here is the standard APA format for a web citation for one of the most common sources we use - "information on a general page." This includes information found on websites such as History.com. The requirements for a citation from a more specific source, such as an online journal, are more complex, and we will revisit them later on this year. For now, let's focus on how to cite information from a general webpage.

Format:

Author, A. (date). Title of document [Format description]. Retrieved from http://URL

Notice that the citation includes 4 pieces of information:
Author, date, title, and web address.

Additionally, each line after the first line must be indented five spaces.

(The format description is only necessary when the format is something like a blog post, or some such publication that is different from a website run by an organization. When you get to high school, you may need to included something called a "retrieval date," but I will not require you to cite this during 6th grade.)

If the web article/information does not include an author, simply begin the citation with the title of the website.

If there is no date of publication, substitute (n.d.) in place of the date for "no date."

Here are some examples. Please note the citation I am going to include at the bottom of this post. It will reference the site from which the following information came:

Examples of Online References

Here’s an example (a blog post) in which we have all four necessary pieces of information (also see Manual example #76):

Freakonomics. (2010, October 29). E-ZPass is a life-saver (literally) [Blog post]. Retrieved from      http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/e-zpass-is-a-life-saver-literally/

Sometimes, however, one or more of these four pieces is missing, such as when there is no identifiable author or no date. 

Here’s an example where no author is identified in this online news article:

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

And here’s an example for a webpage where no date is identified:

The College of William and Mary. (n.d.). College mission statement. Retrieved from   
     http://www.wm.edu/about/administration/provost/mission/index.php

Last note: Remember that only the first word and any proper nouns should be capitalized in the title. 

Citation:

Lee, C. (2010, November 18). How to cite something you found on a website in APA [Blog post].
     Retrieved from http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/11/how-to-cite-something-you-found-on-a-
     website-in-apa-style.html?_ga=1.158038906.1719588118.1483623716