Students conducting research on the World Wide Web will find scholarly projects, reference databases, text from books and articles in periodicals, and other material on professional and personal sites.

In parenthetical references in the text, works on the World Wide Web are cited just like printed works. For any type of source, you must include information in your text that directs readers to the correct entry in the works-cited list (see the MLA Handbook, sec. 5.2).

Web documents generally do not have fixed page numbers or any kind of section numbering, so you have to omit numbers from your parenthetical references. If your source includes fixed page numbers or section numbering (such as paragraph numbering), just cite the relevant numbers. Give the appropriate abbreviation before the numbers: "(Moulthrop, pars. 19-20)." (Pars. is the abbreviation for paragraphs. Other common abbreviations are listed in the MLA Handbook, sec. 6.4.) Dont use the page numbers for a document you have printed from the Web because the pagination may vary in different printouts.

Here is how your Works Cited list for such sources should be formatted. Notice that URLs (Web Addresses) are always inside angle brackets: < >. Following the list there are sample entries for some common kinds of Web sources.

1. Name of the author, the editor, the compiler, or the translator of the source (if available and relevant), reversed for alphabetizing and followed by an abbreviation, such as ed., if appropriate.

2. Title of a poem, short story, article, or similar short work within a scholarly project, database, or periodical (in quotation marks); or title of a posting to a discussion list or forum (taken from the subject line and put in quotation marks), followed by the description

3. Title of a book (underlined)

4. Name of the editor, compiler, or translator of the text (if relevant and if not cited earlier), preceded by the appropriate abbreviation, such as Ed.

5. Publication information for any print version of the source

6. Title of the scholarly project, database, periodical, or professional or personal site (underlined); or, for a professional or personal site with no title, a description such as Home page

7. Name of the editor of the scholarly project or database (if available)

8. Version number of the source (if not part of the title) or, for a journal, the volume number, issue number, or other identifying number

9. Date of electronic publication, of the latest update, or of posting

10. For a work from a subscription service, the name of the service and--if a library is the subscriber--the name and city (and state abbreviation, if necessary) of the library

11. For a posting to a discussion list or forum, the name of the list or forum

12. The number range or total number of pages, paragraphs, or other sections, if they are numbered

13. Name of any institution or organization sponsoring or associated with the Web site

14. Date when the researcher accessed the source

15. Electronic address, or URL, of the source (in angle brackets); or, for a subscription service, the URL of the service's main page (if known) or the keyword assigned by the service

EXAMPLES

Victorian Women Writers Project. Ed. Perry Willett.
Apr. 1997. Indiana U. 26 Apr. 1997
<http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/>.

Professional Site

Portuguese Language Page. U of Chicago. 1 May 1997
<http://humanities.uchicago.edu/romance/port/>.

Personal Site

Lancashire, Ian. Home page. 1 May 1997
<http://www.chass.utoronto.ca:8080/~ian/index.html>.

Book

Nesbit, E[dith]. Ballads and Lyrics of Socialism. London, 1908.
Victorian Women Writers Project. Ed. Perry Willett.
Apr. 1997. Indiana U. 26 Apr. 1997
<http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/nesbit/ballsoc.html>.

Poem

Nesbit, E[dith]. "Marching Song." Ballads and Lyrics of Socialism.
London, 1908. Victorian Women Writers Project. Ed. Perry Willett.
Apr. 1997. Indiana U. 26 Apr. 1997
<http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/nesbit/ballsoc.html#p9>.

Article in a Reference Database

"Fresco." Britannica Online. Vers. 97.1.1. Mar. 1997.
Encyclopaedia Britannica. 29 Mar. 1997
<http://www.eb.com:180>.

Article in a Journal

Flannagan, Roy. "Reflections on Milton and Ariosto."
Early Modern Literary Studies 2.3 (1996): 16 pars. 22 Feb. 1997
<http://unixg.ubc.ca:7001/ 0/e-sources/emls/02-3/flanmilt.html>.

Article in a Magazine

Landsburg, Steven E. "Who Shall Inherit the Earth?" Slate 1 May 1997. 2 May 1997
<http://www.slate.com/Economics/97-05-01/Economics.asp>.

Work from a Subscription Service

Koretz, Gene. "Economic Trends: Uh-Oh, Warm Water.
"Business Week 21 July 1997: 22.
Electric Lib. Sam Barlow High School Lib., Gresham, OR. 17 Oct.1997
<http://www.elibrary.com/>.

"Table Tennis." Compton's Encyclopedia Online. Vers. 2.0. 1997.
America Online. 4 July 1998. Keyword:Compton's.

Posting to a Discussion List

Merrian, Joanne. "Spinoff: Monsterpiece Theatre."
Online posting. 30 Apr. 1994.
Shakespeare: The Global Electronic Shakespeare Conference. 27 Aug. 1997
<http://www.arts.ubc.ca/english/iemls/shak/MONSTERP_SPINOFF.txt>.

*These recommendations on documenting online databases come from the fourth edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. You can find them in the second edition of the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (1998) or on the web at:

• The Kirtland Community College Web Site

• The M L A Web Site

This page was updated on 09/22/2011. If you have any questions, send an e-mail to Dr. Write.