How Do I Reference a Website in a Research Paper?

Each time you use one of your sources to explain something in your paper, you must cite your source.

You can't write a research paper without doing research. With the ease of the Internet, many of your sources can now be acquired simply by doing a web search. Even though it is not from a book, you are still required to cite whatever information you find as a source. If you don't cite the resources you used in your research paper, then you are technically plagiarizing that material. The most common way of citing sources in in the MLA (Modern Language Association) format.

Things You'll Need

• Microsoft Word or another word processing program

Instructions

1. Gather your information on the Internet, For each website you look at, write down the following information: the author's full name, the title of the webpage, the title of the website, the date the webpage was published, the date you did your research and the website's URL. If you cannot find all this information, simply write "Unknown" instead.

2. Write your paper. Each time you use one of your sources to explain something in your paper, whether it is a direct quote or just a summary, after the sentence you must cite your source. Cite it by simply putting the author's last name in parenthesis. If you do not have the author's last name, put the webpage title instead.

3. Write a bibliography for the end of your paper. The sources in your bibliography must be sorted according to the author's last name. You need to format your citations in the following manner: Author Last, Author First. "Title of Web Page." Title of Web Site. Publishing Organization, Date Published. Date Researched. <Website URL>

   The bibliography page should be the last page of your research paper.

References

• Purdue University
• MLA

Resources

• Citationmachine.net