How to Cite a Professional Website
Websites have become standard sources of research material and information. When using online sources for an article or report, it is important to cite that website properly. The Modern Language Association (MLA) format is the style most commonly used in writing and nonscientific research. The following steps will help you to cite a website under MLA guidelines.
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Instructions
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Write the author's last name, followed by the first name and a period. If there is no author credited, it is acceptable to leave this information blank. For example, if you were to cite this article, the author citation should read as:
Cartwright, Marie.
Do not put this information in quotation marks.
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Add after the author name the title of the article in quotation marks. For example:
"How to Cite a Professional Website."
If the article or source does not have a title, you may instead refer to it as Online Posting, without quotation marks.
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Create a second line. Write name of the website on which the source is published. This information should be presented in italics.
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List the date on which the article was published (if available), followed by the date on which you accessed it.
For example, if an article was written on July 22, 2010, and it was used as source material on Oct. 15, 2011, the proper citation would read:
23 July 2010. Web. 15 Oct. 2011.
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Copy and paste the URL of the source material onto the third line. It should be presented as follows:
<http://www.example.com/citation.html>
If you are creating this citation on a website, it is best to make this URL a live link. You can do so by altering the following HTML source code:
<a href="http://www.example.com/citation.html>http://www.example.com/citation.html</a>
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Your completed citation should now look like the following:
Cartwright, Marie. "How to Cite a Professional Website."
eHow (in italics). 22 July 2010. Web. 15 Oct. 2011.
<http://www.example.com/citation.html>
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