Question

To find good evidence to support your reasons in an argument, you may need to use outside sources. Sometimes, those sources will come from a website.

To locate information about the history of farm sanctuaries, Anya first used an online search engine. She typed in “history of farm sanctuaries.” When the results came up, she saw links to several websites for farm sanctuaries across the country.

A photo shows a computer screen displaying an online search engine labeled, search.
Source: wwwebmeister/Shutterstock

If Anya decides to use specific information from any of the websites she finds, she should list those links at the end of her essay in a works cited list or bibliography. There are a number of ways to format such a list. Here is one typical format:

Author (last name first). “Name of Article.” Name of Website, Date of website, link.

If no author is named on the webpage, begin your citation with the name of the article.

Here is an example from Anya’s works cited list:

Reyes, Oliver. “The Complete Farm Sanctuary Directory.” Vegan Navigator, 2019, www.vegannavigator.com/vegan-people-and-places/

Answer 1

Do you want help formatting specific webpages for Anya’s works cited list, or do you want a quick guide showing common ways to cite websites? I can do either. Below are brief, ready-to-use templates and examples (MLA-style, since your example follows that style), plus quick notes for no author/date and for other common styles.

MLA (9th ed.) — typical website page
- Template:
Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Webpage.” Title of Website, Publisher (if different from website title), Day Month Year of publication, URL.
- Example (with author):
Reyes, Oliver. “The Complete Farm Sanctuary Directory.” Vegan Navigator, 2019, www.vegannavigator.com/vegan-people-and-places/
- If no author:
“Title of Webpage.” Title of Website, Day Month Year, URL.
- If no date:
Author. “Title.” Title of Website, URL. (You may add “Accessed Day Month Year” at the end if instructor requests.)
- Organization as author:
American Farm Sanctuary. “History of Farm Sanctuaries.” Farm Sanctuary, 2020, www.farmsanctuary.org/history

APA (7th ed.) — quick template
- Template:
Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL
- Example:
Reyes, O. (2019). The complete farm sanctuary directory. Vegan Navigator. https://www.vegannavigator.com/vegan-people-and-places/

Chicago (Notes & Bibliography) — quick template
- Template:
Author Last, First. “Title of Page.” Title of Website. Publication date. URL.
- Example:
Reyes, Oliver. “The Complete Farm Sanctuary Directory.” Vegan Navigator. 2019. https://www.vegannavigator.com/vegan-people-and-places/

In-text citations (MLA)
- Brief parenthetical: (Reyes) or (“The Complete Farm Sanctuary Directory”) if no author.

If you’d like, paste the URLs or webpage details you want to cite and tell me which citation style to use (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.) and I’ll format them for you.