How to Make a Footnote for a Web Reference

Conduct research for a paper without leaving your home.

A vast source of information, the Internet is often used to research facts, figures and data. When using that information in published articles and documents, or scholastic papers, you must cite the reference to give the source proper credit. The protocol used in the footnote depends on the particular style guide that you are following; the MLA, or Modern Language Association, style guide is generally used in scholastic articles and journals.

Instructions

1. Find the author of the article or data that you are using for research. The author’s name is most commonly located at the beginning or end of the document. Begin the footnote with the author’s last name followed by a comma, and then list the author’s first name followed by a period. For example, Jones, Kevin.

2. Follow the author’s name with the title of the article, with all major words capitalized and put in quotation marks.

3. List the website from where the article was found in italics.

4. Locate the date the information was published, if possible. Some websites do not include a publication date, in which case you do not include a date. For those that do include a date, write out the full date, followed by a period.

5. Write the URL of the web page so that the information can be easily located.

6. Check your footnote to see that it looks similar to the following; Jones, Kevin. “How to Write an Article”. Writing Basics. September 1, 2011. www.writingbasics.com/how-to-write-article.

References

• Roane State Community College: MLA Format for Websites