How Do You Cite a Website in a Text?

When writing a research paper, you must accumulate sources to provide factual support for your information. To accurately reference the research and writings of others, you should cite them within your text. Citing websites within a text follows the same rules as citing printed works, according to standards set by the Modern Language Association (MLA).

Instructions

1. Find the author of the information online. If citing an article that has an author's name, you will use the author rather than the website as part of your citation. If there is no author listed, you will need to include the website's name.

2. Write the author's name before or after the citation within the text. For example, "According to Harvey Wise, sea turtles are becoming increasingly endangered." You may also cite the reference using the author's last name.

3. Include the actual website for those online references that fail to include an author's name. For example, if citing whitehouse.gov as a reference, you could cite the reference like this: Barack Obama become president of the United States in 2009 (White House).

4. Include your online reference in your works cited page. This is especially important because the website's full address (e.g., whitehouse.gov) is not used within the in-text citation.

References

• University of Georgia: MLA Handbook
• Duke University: MLA in-text parenthetical citations