How to Cite APA Online Sources

Learning how to cite online sources will make writing your research paper easier.

Writing research papers can be a challenge, but citing your sources properly doesn't have to be. APA (American Psychological Association) style has come to be the standard for writing in the social sciences. If you learn it well, you won't lose points on your papers for poorly formatted work, and you will know how to avoid plagiarizing. It all starts with properly citing your research. Citing books is straightforward, while citing online sources is more of a challenge.

Instructions

In-text Citations

1. Cite a reference in your main text using the author-date style used for print publications. After you refer to an online source's author, add the date in parentheses. If you are referring to an entire article or website, add the author and date in parentheses, with a comma in between.

2. Use the title of the work in quotation marks and an "n.d." to signal that no author or date is attached to the source, if that is the case.

3. Cite a quotation from a source without page numbers by using paragraph numbers or subheadings after the name and date.

Reference Citations

1. Format your citations as closely as possible to the way you would cite a book or journal. Begin with the author's last name and first initial, and date of publication (in parentheses). Then add the title of the article, the title of the periodical (in italics), and the volume number and issue number.

2. Add the phrase "Retrieved from" and the full URL. If a Digital Object Identifier is available for the article, use that instead of the URL. If you must use the URL, and the source is likely to change (such as a wiki), include the date you accessed it.

3. Use "n. d." to indicate that there is no date attached to your online source, as may be the case with nonperiodical websites.

Tips & Warnings

• There are many sub-variations of citation style for use in your reference list, depending on the type of source (such as data sets, online interviews, downloaded software, forum posts and podcasts). If your specific situation is not addressed here, borrow an APA stylebook from your school library to make sure you observe all the rules.

• If you are using multiple sources, take careful notes when you access each site so that you can cite each properly. Otherwise, you may forget vital information and be unable to find it again.

References

• APA Style; FAQs About APA Style
• Purdue Online Writing Lab; APA Style
• Cornell University Library; APA Citation Style