When the Librarians send research materials to students, they try to include all
When the Librarians send research materials to students, they try to include all of the details you will need to write your citations. But sometimes not all of the information you need will reach you. In those cases, you’ll still need to write a citation, but you’ll be missing one or more of the required elements and your citation will be incomplete. The citation guidelines give some rules about what to write in your citation if you are missing the information. Note that we are providing guidelines for both MLA and APA, since there are many similarities. When there are differences, follow the guidelines for MLA if you are using MLA format in your class; follow the guidelines for APA if you are using APA format in your class.
What’s missing: Author
What to do: Double check that the author is actually missing. Getting a source without an author listed is unusual. It’s likely that if you do not see any individuals named as the author, then the author is actually the organization that is responsible for the source. For example, a page from the National Park Service website may not have any specific author listed on the page, but you should name National Park Service as the author in your citation, because that organization wrote the page.
If there actually is no author listed on the print out of the source you got, then you will just leave it out. In your in-text citation you will put the title of the page, article or chapter. Your full citation will start with the title. And you’ll put it in your list where it belongs alphabetically according to the first word of the title.
What not to do: If the author of the source isn’t listed on the copy that you have, do not use “Anonymous” instead. You can only use Anonymous as the author if the source you are citing is actually signed Anonymous.
What’s special about APA: Note that usually the date of publication comes right after the author’s name in APA, but if there is no author, then the date will come after the title, like this:
Title. (Date). Source.
Form for MLA:
“Title of Web Page.” Title of Website, date published in day month year format, URL without the https://.
Example for MLA:
“The Reading Brain: Differences between Digital and Print.” So Many Books, 25 Apr. 2013, www.somanybooksblog.com/2013/04/25/the-reading-brain-differences-between-digital-and-print/.
Form for APA:
Title of the page or article. (Year, Month Day). Title of the Site or Journal. URL
Example for APA:
New apple varieties. (1997, June). Food Magazine. https://foodmag.com/article/1997/22-new
What’s missing: Publication date
What to do in MLA: Sometimes websites that the librarians send do not have a publication date. When there is no date, skip that information in your citation. MLA says to add the date you accessed the source at the end of the full citation in your Works Cited list. The access date is given by putting the word “Accessed” followed by the date you viewed or accessed the work (format = Day Month (shortened) Year). If