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Citation Help: Web Pages and Social Media

WARNING

The information and examples provided on this set of pages describing APA citation style are based on the 6th (2010) edition of the Manual. A newer 7th edition is now published and available at many of our libraries across campus. The new APA 7th edition guide is now available.

APA Citation Examples: Web Pages & Social Media

If you are citing an entire website, it is not necessary to include a citation for the website in your reference list. Simply include the title and address within the text of your paper.

Example:
The Safe Child website includes practical information for parents on how to help their children cope with bullying (http://safechild.org).

When citing specific information from individual web pages, use the following elements to create your citation. For more information on creating citations when some of the elements are missing, see the APA Style Blog post on Missing Pieces.

Note: Citations with more than one line of text should have a hanging indent of 1/2 inch or 5 spaces.

Important Elements

  • Author (if known). If no author, use title
  • Date of publication. If no date, use n.d.
  • Title of Web page
  • URL (Web address) of the Web page

Note on titles: only italicize the title of a document that stands alone (books, reports, etc.), but not the title of a document that is part of a greater whole. If you are not sure whether something stands alone (such as a document on a website), choose not to italicize.

Web page with author

Author Last, A. A. (Year). Title of web page. Retrieved from Stable URL

Kraizer, S. (2011). Safety on the Internet. Retrieved from http://safechild.org/categoryparents/safety-on-the-internet/

Web page with group author

Group Name (Year). Title of web page. Retrieved from Stable URL

American Cancer Society (2015). Genetics and cancer. Retrieved from http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/geneticsandcancer/index

Web page with no author

Title of web page (Year). Retrieved from stable URL

Claustrophobia (2014). Retrieved from http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/claustrophobia/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Blog Post

Author Last, A. A. (year, Month day). Title of post [Blog post]. Retrieved from stable URL

McAdoo, T. (2014, February 4). How to Cite a Hashtag in #APA Style [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/social-media/

YouTube Video

Creator, A. A. (year, Month day). [Creator Username]. Title of video [Video file}. Retrieved from stable URL

Clarkson, R.G. (2009, July 20). [RobertGClarkson]. Claustrophobia: 7 Quick Tactics to Stop the Panic [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jOXKzwM-Ns

For more information on citing social media such as Facebook and Twitter, see the APA Style blog post on How to Cite Social Media.

Courtesy of Penn State University Libraries

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Useful Resources for APA Citation