Giving Credit

Giving Credit - how bibliography entries are made for web sites.

Part of being a good writer and scientist is letting others know how to locate information you used to write your paper. This is done by citing your sources in a bibliography at the end of a paper. There are some common ways to cite your sources for books, journals and magazines, but the Web is a bit different. Articles on the Internet do not have page numbers and often do not have an author. So how do you reference Web-based information?

How to cite a Web source

There is no standard way to cite the information you obtain from a Web site. The two most common methods used are the APA (American Psychological Association) and the MLA (Modern Language Association). Each one has a similar method for citing information that includes:

• author's name (if known) 
• full title of the document in quotation marks 
• title of the complete work if applicable in italics 
• date of publication or last revision (if available). Sometimes you need to check the home page for the web site to locate the this date.
• full http address (URL) enclosed within angle brackets 
• date of visit in parentheses

Here is an example based on the MLA style guide. 

Ortiz-Barney, Elena. "Time Traveling Plants." 
Ask a Biologist. 2001. 
<http://askabiologist.asu.edu/research/ seeds/index.html> 
(7 July. 2001). 

Example with two authors.

Cooper, Kim and C. J. Kazilek. "Seeing Color." 
Ask a Biologist. 2001. 
<http://askabiologist.asu.edu/research/seecolor/index.html> 
(7 July. 2001).

If the author is not identified, begin the citation with the title of the document.

"Puzzles." Ask a Biologist. 2001
<http://askabiologist.asu.edu/expstuff/puzzles.html>
(7 July. 2001)

On the Ask A Biologist website we have a link at the bottom of each page to help you cite your work correctly. You can try it out on this page by clicking on the link below.