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Citing a Website Source in an Essay: A Guide for Different Citation Styles



If you're writing a research paper, you'll likely do quite a bit of research online. If you have websites that you want to use as sources for your paper, an entry for the website must appear in the reference list (also called the bibliography or Works Cited) at the end of your paper. You'll also include a citation in-text at the end of any sentence in which you've paraphrased or quoted information that appeared on that website. While the information you need to provide is generally the same across all methods, the way you format that information may vary depending on whether you're using the Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA), or Chicago style of citation.


Online Sources: internet sources are quotes, pictures, recordings, etc. taken from websites on the World Wide Web (cf. Franck & Stary 2009: 191). Besides this, articles from websites also count as online sources. When you cite a website, it is crucial to include these components:




citing a website source in an essay



Date of last access & date of publication: The date of last access is another compulsory element when citing a website. For example: Retrieved March 5, 2019. If you can find information on the publication date of the website article you want to cite, you should include this. Sometimes you might not be able to find a publication date. In that case, you can use the date that you last accessed the website in the short references (cf. Samac, Prenner, & Schwetz 2009: 95 ff., Szuchman 2005: 106).


Online sources and websites are increasingly used as your studies become more focused, e.g. in a cultural discourse. Therefore, it is crucial to know how to cite a website when you are using it as source for your thesis.


If you are citing a website, it has to be included in the reference list. This is not always easy, as in many cases internet sources do not have page numbers and cannot be assigned to an author or to their year of publication. If you are citing material from an institutions website, e.g. a ministry, this institution is cited as the author (cf. Kruse 2010: 118).


Make sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page: This is where you will find the sites copyright and legal information, which also helps you evaluate whether the website is a reliable source or not (terms of use, name of the operator, regular updates, etc.). If there is no author, this is where you can find the name of the operator.


Below are a handful of the most common citations. You will see the source type (for example, article, book, website) followed by the formatting guideline and examples for both the full citation for the works-cited list and the short in-text citation that appears in the body of the paper.


A bibliography displays the sources the writer used to gain background knowledge on the topic and also research it in-depth. Before starting a research project, you might read up on the topic in websites, books, and other sources. You might even dive a bit deeper to find more information elsewhere. All of these sources you used to help you learn about the topic would go in an MLA format bibliography. You might even include other sources that relate to the topic.


However, when citing part of a source, such as an article on a website, a chapter in a book, a song on an album, or an article in a scholarly journal, the part is written with quotation marks and then the titles of the sources that they are found in are written in italics.


To add the source information, click Add New Source, and then, in the Create Source dialog box, click the arrow next to Type of Source, and select the type of source you want to use (for example, a book section or a website).


The principal guide for citing online sources involves following the standard reference format for the source, and also providing navigational elements such as an internet address and date of access (the date the document/page is viewed), or the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), if it is present.


As well as saving you time with its citation maker, Cite This For Me provides the learning resources to help you fully understand the citing process and the benefits of adopting great referencing standards.


You need to cite and document any sources that you have consulted, even if you presented the ideas from these sources in your own words. You need to cite to identify other people's ideas and information used within your essay and to inform the reader of your paper where they should look if they want to find the same sources.


APA's guidelines for citing online sources recommend using digital object identifiers (DOIs), available on items such as e-books and journal articles. To find a DOI a helpful tool is crossref.org's DOI Lookup.


When citing two or more sources with the same author and year, order them by date of publication if applicable, with the earliest month first. If there is only a publication year or the dates are the same, order them by title alphabetically. In both cases, assign a letter -- a, b, c, and so on to the citation, right after the year, inside the parentheses. This will allow you to specify which one you are citing in text. See rule 6.25, p. 182 for more information.


The following example is for citing a figure that you have created by compiling information from a variety of sources. For example, if you combined data from Passport GMID, Statistics Canada, and a book to create a new chart.


Comments: Use this citation style when citing data from a table or elsewhere. Use the citation style below if you are reprinting a table from this source in your work. Provide the URL of the publisher's home page (in this case Ipsos). Do not provide the direct URL to the data. See Citing Online Sources: Retrieval Statements for more information on this rule.


Comments: Use this citation style when citing data from a table or elsewhere. Use the citation style below if you are reprinting a table from this source in your work. Provide the URL of the publisher's home page (in this case Vividata). Do not provide the direct URL to the data. See Citing Online Sources: Retrieval Statements for more information on this rule.


Comments: Use this citation style when citing data from a table or elsewhere. Use the citation style below if you are reprinting a table from this source in your work. Provide the URL of the publisher's home page (in this case Thomson Reuters). Do not provide the direct URL to the data. See Citing Online Sources: Retrieval Statements for more information on this rule.


Comments: Use this citation style when citing data from a table or elsewhere. Use the citation style below if you are reprinting a table from this source in your work. Provide the URL of the publisher's home page (in this case United Nations Statistics Division). Do not provide the direct URL to the data. See Citing Online Sources: Retrieval Statements for more information on this rule. There is no period after the URL.


Comments: Use this citation style when citing data from a table or elsewhere. Use the citation style below if you are reprinting a table from this source in your work. n.d. (no date) is used in place of the date, as this item was not dated. Provide the URL of the publisher's home page (in this case the World Bank Group). Do not provide the direct URL to the data. See Citing Online Sources: Retrieval Statements for more information on this rule. There is no period after the URL.


Comments: Use this citation style when citing data from a table or elsewhere. Use the citation style below if you are reprinting a table from this source in your work. Include page number(s) when available.Provide the URL of the publisher's website (in this case Euromonitor International). Do not provide the direct URL to the report. There is no period after the URL.


There are occasions where you may find a source that quotes another source that you want to use in your paper. Ideally, you would find the original source to ensure you understand the context of the quote. If you do decide to use the quote from the source you are using, however, you must recognize both sources. For example, in the Critical Insights series, we have a popular book of critical analysis called Things for Apart. One of the chapters, written by Amy Sickels, is entitled "The Critical Reception of Things Fall Apart." In her essay, she quotes Keith M. Booker. This is the quote you decide you want to use:


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.


Use this for videos posted on websites or blogs, such as YouTube, TED, a news website, etc. If you are citing a direct quotation from a video, you can use the time stamp in place of a page number within the in-text citation (see Example 1).


Citing a website in Chicago style requires you to include much of the same information you would including in citing a print resource like author(s)/editor(s), title of website, publisher information, etc. This information can be difficult to find on a website so you may have to look around a bit to find the information. Chicago style also requires that you include the date you accessed the website and/or publication date (if available), and the website's URL. For detailed information please visit: 14.207: Citing web pages and websites.


Special presentations, articles, and essays include examples that illustrate collection themes. Many collections include specific items, such as timelines, family trees or scholarly essays, which are not primary source documents. Such content has been created to enhance understanding of the collection. 2ff7e9595c


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