How to Cite a Website With APA Text Citation

Only cite websites published by dependable, scholarly sources.

The Internet provides extensive and convenient information that can enhance your paper's research and argument, but you might find it awkward to mention a nontraditional source such as a website in the text of your paper. Fortunately, to ease your confusion and to respond to the increasing prevalence of publishing scholarly information online, the American Psychological Association (APA) has developed clear guidelines for citing websites in the body of a paper.

Instructions

Citing the Website As a Whole

1. Mention the name or title of the website in the text of your sentence if you refer to the website as a whole, not to any particular section, article, page, information or document. To determine the website's official name, check the logo on the site's home page.

2. Paste the website's full URL into a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence, including the "http://www." at the beginning and the domain specification at the end (.com, .gov, .edu, etc.). For example, a sentence about this website could read, "The eHow website publishes many useful articles (http://www.ehow.com/)." Don't hyperlink the website's URL; it should appear in normal text.

3. Omit the normal author-date citation in the text; according to the American Psychological Association, this is unnecessary if you only reference the website in general. (Additionally, don't include a citation for the website in your paper's reference list.)

Citing a Part of the Website

1. Cite the author of the website if you referenced a specific page of the website, document published by the site or information found on the site. If the page you reference cites a specific person as its author, then use that person's last name. Otherwise, cite the publisher of the website, often an organization or a business. If the site doesn't specify a publisher, then simply cite the website's name (check its logo to determine its official name).

   Place the author's name inside a set of parentheses at the end of the sentence.

2. Specify the webpage's publication date in the parenthetical citation. Add a comma after the author's name; after a space, write the publication year.

3. Specify the appropriate page number or paragraph number, if you referenced information from a specific section of the website's document. Add a comma after the publication year; after a space, write "p." for page number or "para." for paragraph number. After another space, write the number.

Tips & Warnings

• If you cited a specific document from the website, rather than the website as a whole, then don't include the URL in the text of your paper.

References

• "Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association" (6th edition); American Psychological Association; 2009
• American Psychological Association: How Do You Cite an Entire Website (But Not a Specific Document on that Site)?

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• Purdue Online Writing Lab: Reference List: Electronic Sources (Web Publications)