How to Format an Internet Article from Web Page in MLA Style

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WORK CITED PAGE

How to format an Internet article from web page in MLA style.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INTERNET ARTICLES

For this assignment, you must find an Internet article that ends in the HTM or HTML extension because the purpose is to make you aware of the different way MLA documents this type of source in-text. However, you may find sources on the Internet that end in DOC, PDF, and other extensions. You may find audio and video sources that you can also cite in papers. The different types of Internet sources are covered in the LB Brief, but this handout shows the generic way to cite a standard Internet article from a web site. The particular article in question comes from Time’s online site. Many print periodicals have online sites now. As a researcher, you must be able to distinguish between online only content and print content if a teacher requires you only use print sources. You also need to be able to distinguish articles written by journalists and experts and pages available on some of these news-related sites that are blog posts often contributed to by anyone surfing the net. Many credible periodicals, like The New York Times, though, have blogs where the posts are written by experts in the area being discussed. You should check with your teacher if this is acceptable (since some would not accept a blog).

To format a standard Internet page, MLA provides 8 elements to look for. They are listed in the order they should appear in the work cited entry. The discussion of documenting web sources on a work cited page begins on p. 463 in the LB Brief handbook.

1.  Author

2.  “Title of Page.”

3.  Title of Web Site

4.  Version or edition (if any)

5.  Sponsor of site (may be the same as the site title, which in turn may be the same as the author if a group or corporate author)

6.  Date page was published, modified, or last updated

7.  Type of source: Web.

8.  Date of access (when you retrieved the page)

URL – MLA only requires you provide the http address for the page if it is difficult to find. To determine if you need to include the http, google the title of the page. If it shows up in the top 10 or so responses to your search, then you do NOT need to include the web address. If it only appears low on the list (so a reader may not look long enough to see it) or doesn’t appear at all, then provide the http address. To check this out, take the title of my sample article and google it: “The Science Behind Beer Goggles” (your google search should have returned with this as the first link). Note: If you find that the article you are citing appears on many different web sites, and some of them are NOT credible, then you might want to include the http for the specific site where you found this article).

Author names

Example

Follow the same rules as explained for citing a book.

Pollak, Sorcha.

Title of Article (Web page)

Using title case, put titles of articles and Internet pages in quotation marks. Place a period inside the closing quotation mark before moving on to the title of the web site. If the original title includes an element that is within quotes, then make those single quotes and use double quotes around complete title.

Example

Pollak, Sorcha. “The Science Behind ‘Beer Goggles.’”

Title of Web Site

Italicize titles of web sites. Unlike journals and magazines, end this title with a period. You may have to go to the home page of the web site to find the complete title, which will often include the .com ending.

Example

Pollak, Sorcha. “The Science Behind ‘Beer Goggles.’” Time.com.

Sponsor of Web Site

Web sites are created and paid for. The sponsor is the person responsible for putting up the content and/or paying for it to be online. This may be the same as the title of the web site, or it might be a separate group. You might not even be able to find who the sponsor is because it’s not listed on the site. Here, you may have to do some investigation. The first place to look is at the bottom of the page. You may see a copyright symbol or some phrase that indicates who is responsible for the content. You might have to go to the home page. This information might only be listed on a page titled “about us” or something similar. Do your best to find it, but if nothing shows, substitute the initials N.p. (for “no publisher) followed by a comma.

Example

Pollak, Sorcha. “The Science Behind ‘Beer Goggles.’” Time.com. Time, Inc.,

Date of Electronic Publication or Last Modified/Updated

Follow the sponsor name with the date the article was published electronically. If you do not have a date specific for that article, look for a general date for when the site was last updated or changed. This may be on the home page only. End this date (formatted in MLA style) with a period.

Example

Pollak, Sorcha. “The Science Behind ‘Beer Goggles.’” Time.com. Time, Inc., 26 Mar. 2013.

Medium of Publication

Though books put this information at the very end, other sources place it in different spots. Internet sources show the medium after the publication date.

Example

Pollak, Sorcha. “The Science Behind ‘Beer Goggles.’” Time.com. Time, Inc., 26 Mar. 2013. Web.

Date of Access

You will always have this date since it refers to when you retrieved the information.

Example

Pollak, Sorcha. “The Science Behind ‘Beer Goggles.’” Time.com. Time, Inc., 26 Mar. 2013. Web. 6 Mar. 2013.

Your citation is complete. Notice there are no page numbers here, as you would have for a print article. That’s because an html article has not fixed layout. Your printer will put page numbers on any print out (e.g., Page 1 out of 15), but this is not fixed and will vary depending on the computer and printer settings where it was printed out. So page numbers are useless in this context. The rule of thumb is that if you do not see a page number on the screen when you look at the article as it appears, then you do not have a fixed page number to reference for your research. In this case, you have no page numbers to cite in parenthetical notations in your essay.

Easybib.com Warning

I encourage students to use Easybib.com to help them format their work cited pages, but I also always include this warning: “You must double check that what you get is MLA style.” This article is a perfect example of how Easybib can mess up. Below is our example:

Correct Example

Pollak, Sorcha. “The Science Behind ‘Beer Goggles.’” Time.com. Time, Inc., 26 Mar. 2013. Web.

Here is how Easybib formatted it using just the URL to automatically fill in the Internet Article form:

"The Science behind â Beer Gogglesâ." NewsFeed The Science behind Beer Goggles Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2013.

Clearly this has many errors. The author is not listed, nor is the correct web page. Strange characters appear in the title, and though a date clearly appears on the web page, Easybib shows “n.d.” for “no date.” The best bet is to build the entry yourself rather than rely on the autocite feature.

When you have completed your Internet work cited entry, add it to the Works Cited page of your Hands-on MLA paper.