Whenever you write a research paper or any other written document which uses references of others’ works, you need to cite the reference to give the individual his/her due credit. Read along this Penlighten article to get a low-down on how to cite a reference or a website.
Research papers, as all of us know, are extensive and consequently, a lot of hard work is put in by the researcher. The researcher, however, has a lot of references and citations that he needs to give credit to and acknowledge them as well. Rather, the study and the document cannot be replete and powerful without these citations. Knowing the correct way of referring a website is important because if you fail to do so, you may infringe certain copyright laws and face legal issues.
Hence, it is essential to mention or allude to those studies in that particular area. In case you are working on a research paper or a document and are pondering over the correct way to cite a website, you have hit the right place! In the below sections, we shall tell you about ways of citing or referring a website in your paper.
How to Cite a Website in a Research Paper?
|The Modern Language Association (MLA) is a citation style mostly used for arts and humanities and is widely used in North America.
For example, your citation should look somehow like this.
Last name, First name. “Article Title.” Website Title. Publisher of the Website, Day Month Year article published. Web. Day Month Year article accessed. URL.
|APA style, coming from American Psychological Association is also widely used in social sciences.
For example, the structure of your APA style citation will look like
Last name, First Initial. (Year, Month Date Published).Article Title. Retrieved from URL.
These two styles are based on the name of the author(s). What if there is no author? Let’s see.
|APA With No Author|
Article title. (Year, Month Date of Publication). Retrieved from URL
|MLA With No Author|
“Article Title”. Name of site. Publisher, Date of Publication (if available). Web. Accessed date.
Citing a website wasn’t that tough, right? We’re sure now that the next time you write a research paper or a bibliography, you know now how to cite reference and acknowledge the people who helped you.