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Welcome to the Leicester Middle School Library: Website Citations

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What is a citation?

  • A citation is a way of giving credit to the source you used for an assignment. 
  • Citations allow the teacher to locate the sources you used for your research.
  • There are specific ways to cite the sources we use, depending on the subject you're researching or the requirements of the teacher. For this project we are learning how to cite in MLA 8 format. 

Locating Citation Information on a Website

When looking for elements of your citation on a webpage, it's helpful to look in these places:

  • To identify the Author, check the beginning of the article. You can also view the bottom of the article for the author's name.
  • You can often find the Date of Publication near the author's name. Also check the bottom of the article to see if the site shares when the article was last updated.
  • The Title of the article will be at the top of the webpage before the article begins. The title is usually in bold with an increased font size compared to the rest of the article.
  • The Webpage Title is usually found in the header, the topmost portion of the website.
  • The website's Publisher can usually be found in the footer of the webpage or in the "About Us" section.
  • The website URL is located in the URL address bar.

Remember, you may not be able to locate all the elements of the citation. If an element is not shared don't include it in your citation.

Website as Source: MLA 8 Format

In MLA 8, the source type does not change the formatting of the citation. When citing a website look for the following information and assemble it in this order:

  1. Author's name 
    • Place author's name in reverse order with a comma between the last name and the first name; end with a period
    • example: Barnes, George.
  2. Title of the article or page
    • The title of the article is put in quotations. Place a period before the end of the quotation.
    • example: "The Roads Outside are Frightful."
  3. Title of the website
    • The title of the website should be italicized with a comma at the end of the title
    • example: Telegram.com,
  4. Name of the publisher
    • After the comma, write the name of the website's publisher; end in a comma.
    • If the name of the website is the same as the publisher omit it
    • ex. GateHouse Media, LLC.,
  5. Date that article, webpage, etc. was posted
    • Day of the month, abbreviated month, followed by year; end in a comma
    • ex. 16 Dec. 2016,
  6. URL
    • Paste url, not including http://
    • end the url in a period
    • make the link clickable if it is a web source
    • ex. http://www.telegram.com/news/20161216/roads-outside-are-frightful

The elements together would look like this:

Combining the example elements, the citation would look like this:

Website Citation Examples

School Librarian

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Christy Minton
Contact:
70 Winslow Ave
Leicester, MA 01524
508-892-7055

Easybib.com

Once you have identified the citation information of your source, Easybib will help you create a citation in the MLA 8 format.

Let's practice creating these citation in Easybib:

Works Cited Example

Additional Resource

MLA Works Cited Page: Electronic Sources (Web Publications): Visit Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL) to find more information regarding citing web sources