Citing a website might sound a new term to many. It’s not different than acknowledging someone’s work by giving them credit for their work!
Many people including writers, bloggers, news websites and others mention statements of other people with their names and this is what we exactly call citation.
If you know the term plagiarism, you might understand Citation better by exactly counting it as just the opposite of plagiarism. Plagiarism is representing others’ work as our own, without giving them any credit for their hard work, whereas, in the citation, we mention the name of the author after or before mentioning their work.
Citing can be done to any website, photo, art, music, report, etc. The other name for citation is Quoting. So next time when you read the term quote or cite consider them both as same!
While preparing any report or doing some research, we often stuck around some content on a website, which we just want to put as it is to our report. Apparently, it is unfair to do it without giving the credit to the website for their good work.
Therefore it becomes really essential for us to cite the website, i.e give credit to the website for their work and it is the best way to show your curtsy too!
If you don’t know how to cite a website, then probably the article is for you! There are a number of ways we can cite a website, let’s find out what are those ways!
How to Cite a Website:
As suggested above, there are a number of ways you can make the citation of a website. We won’t be teaching you here all the ways for citation but the two most used ways i.e Modern Language Association’s (MLA) and American Psychological Association’s (APA).
These both methods follow the different guidelines to show the website as a source you have researched and show your curtsy towards the website for providing valuable contents.
Both the methods i.e MLA and APA use their different sets of rules and format for citation. I’ll walk you through the step by step guide for citing a website through APA and MLA!
Citing a website in MLA:
Below steps will tell you how to cite a website using MLA citation.
Step 1. If you are supposed to cite a website where you know the name of the author, you need to follow the below format.
Last Name, First Name, “Article Title.” Website Title. Website Publisher, date of publication, month, year. Date/Month/Year you accessed the content.
You can well understand it better by the following screenshot.
Although, in MLA we don’t require to add the URL of the website some websites may ask you to do that’s exceptional. If you want, you can add the URL of the resource at the bottom of your content under the title references.
Or simply place it just after the format given above. To be more specific, the website URL should be given just after the date, the content has been accessed.
The above format is applicable when you know the name of the author. But if you don’t know the name, follow the format, given in step 2.
Step 2. Not every time you will see the name of the author on the article you took the reference from. In such cases, you can follow the below format for citation.
The correct citation format to be followed when the author’s name is unknown is as follows.
“Article Title.” Website Title. Website Publisher, date of publication, month, year. Date/Month/Year of the day you accessed the content.
You can see, there is no difference in the format accept the name in the beginning. See the following image to see how it works!
Isn’t it really easy to cite a website with the MAL method?? The steps are equally simple for APA citation as well. Let’s find out!
Citing a website in APA:
Unlike MLA, we need to embed the URL of the website to be cited in the text of the website. This is really essential to do that, hence you can’t skip this step.
In MLA, we do it in some circumstances, while in APA, we do it on a mandatory basis. Below steps will tell you how to cite a website using APA citation.
Step 1. If you know the name of the author of the article, then below citation format is applicable for you!
Last Name, First Name (Year, Month Date of Publication). Article title. Retrieved from URL
Yes, in APA, we write the date of the content published before the title of the website. The last name and first name of the author separated with the commas, then the date ( in the format Year, Month date) when the content was published. And then comes the title of the article, followed by the website URL.
Exactly the same, as the below screenshot.
Step 2. And if the author’s name is unknown to you, the following Format needs to be followed.
Article title. (Year, Month Date of Publication). Retrieved from URL
You can see the difference. If you still have any doubts, about how this method works, have a look at the below screenshot.
When you use others’ work like photos, tweets, FB status, any article of a website on your report, website or book, it becomes really essential to give the credit to them for their work to avoid any kind of copyright infringement and to show your thankfulness.
The above guide was compiled to teach you how to cite a website using MAL and APA methods. There are many other methods for the same which you can easily get from other resources on the web.
The Citation is also handy for your readers. By getting to know about the resources you have researched, they can explore the topic more clearly and in-depth, if they desire to!
On that note, we have reached the end of the guide. Feel free to share the guide if you found it useful and drop your comment below if you encountered any problem while following the steps.