Citing a Web page document
When you are creating a citation for a document you found on
the Web, not from a database, and you're not sure what to do,
look for the following information and list it in this order
with this punctuation, and you should have a reasonably accurate
citation.
Author. "Title." Name of Web page. Date of
material. Agency
that sponsors site. Date you
retrieved material <URL>.
AT WE DAD:
Author.
This is sometimes at the top of an article, sometimes at
the bottom, and sometimes listed on another page. Look
everywhere. Sometimes an agency will be listed as the
author. That's ok. If you are citing a government
document with no author, the government agency that produced
it is listed as the author.
"Title."
This is generally found at the top of the article.
Write it in correct title format (capitalize) regardless of
how it's written on the site.
Website.
This is the website that "owns" this document. If you
are at the document site, it might not be clear what the
website is, so you will have to look for a "Home" button or
back out of the address one slash at a time and look around.
The home website is usually, but not always, the first part of
the URL. You can't assume that's true because a document
may be linked to one site from another. When you get to the
home page, the name of the website is usually in BIG letters
at the top. The name may be in the form of an acronym
(or initials). Use the abbreviation if that's what is
given.
Editor.
Abbreviate like this: Ed. John Smith. You'll
have to search around to see if there is an editor for a site.
Sometimes that information will be available on an "About this
site" (etc.) link. Many sites don't give an
editor's name.
Date of material.
List like this: 5 Sep. 2002. Sometimes the date is at
the top of a document, sometimes at the bottom. If there
is no date on the article, look for the copyright date for the
site, generally at the bottom of the home page, and use that
date. Occasionally, you will find a "last updated" date,
and you can also use that date for your citation.
Agency that sponsors the site.
It's very important to try to figure out who a site belongs
to--Joe Blow or the United Nations, for example, because that
helps to establish credibility. Remember that anyone can
put up a website and make it look official--that doesn't mean
it's valid to use in a paper. Look for a button that
says "About us," "Who we are," or some such thing. Also,
look at the bottom of the home page. If you find a
copyright date, the sponsoring agency is often listed with it.
This may or may not be the same as the Web page name. If you
can't find any clue as to whom a site belongs, you should be
concerned.
Date of retrieval
There is no period (.) separating this date from the URL.
This information is very important because the site may not be
there the next day or may be there in a different form.
<URL>.
The URL to the document itself is listed even though you
may have had to go to another page to get identifying
information. The URL has < > marks around it and is
unlinked unless the paper is to be submitted electronically.
Good luck.
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