Citation Style Guides: Websites

APA Style is surprisingly lax with regard to citing websites. 

Some reference guides suggest you can simple cite the URL in the body of the text as a parenthetical reference, unless you are citing a specific item within the website or directly quoting from the website. 

 

Author - last name, first initial. (Date created or updated).

     Title. URL. 

 

If you are unable to determine when the item was created or updated, put (n.d.).

Also consult the APA articles page for citing articles from the Internet.

 

If a website is likely to change, such as a wiki or forum.  You may add "Retrieved [current date]" before the URL.

Webpage Sec 7.09:

Mitchell, S. D.  (2000).  The import of uncertainty.

     http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000162/

 

Gangsters Inc.  (2010).  Organized crime history:

     Did the mafia turn the United States into a

     better country?  http://gangstersinc.ning.com

     /profiles/blogs/organized-crime-history-did

 

 

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Essay in Library Database:

I have not found an example of this in 5th or 6th editions, so this is a little bit of guess work.

In the following example from Biography in Context database, the publisher (Gale) does not issue DOIs.  I also do not want a huge string of URL, so I am treating it like an article from a database that does not issue DOIs and have really long URLs.  The last part is a Gale document number listed at the end of each item. 

 

Sigmund Freud.  (2001).  In World of Sociology.

     Retrieved from Biography in Context

     database.  (Gale/K2427100106). 

 

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E-Book:

Duncan, L.  (2004).  The welfare of

     children [NetLibrary version].

     http://www.netlibrary.com

 

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Video - online Sec 10.12

Nichole337. [Producer].  (2011, January 6).

     Toxic Britney Spears cover [Video].

     YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/

     watch?v=9pWdnPefj8Q

• If you quote from a Youtube video (or any other audio-visual material), you need to include a timestamp for the reference in the narrative of your paper (Nicole337, 2011, 1.7).  Sec. 8.28

Citation Generator

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OWL - Purdue University

EasyBib - APA

Scribbr

University of Northern Colorado's APA Style 6th ed. LibGuide.