how to quote an website in an essay

Thursday, February 23: The Clark Library is closed today.

APA Style (7th Edition) Citation Guide: Websites

• Introduction
• Journal Articles
• Magazine/Newspaper Articles
• Books & Ebooks
• Government & Legal Documents
• Biblical Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Films/Videos/TV Shows
• How to Cite: Other
• Additional Help

Table of Contents

Entire Website - No Separate Pages or Sections

Page or Section from a Website

Note: All citations should be double spaced and have a hanging indent in a Reference List.

A "hanging indent" means that each subsequent line after the first line of your citation should be indented by 0.5 inches.

This Microsoft support page contains instructions about how to format a hanging indent in a paper.

It can sometimes be difficult to find out who the author of a website is. Remember that an author can be a corporation or group, not only a specific person. Author information can sometimes be found under an "About" section on a website.

If there is no known author, start the citation with the title of the website instead.

The best date to use for a website is the date that the content was last updated. Otherwise look for a copyright or original publication date. Unfortunately this information may not be provided or may be hard to find. Often date information is put on the bottom of the pages of a website.

If you do not know the complete date, put as much information as you can find. For example you may have a year but no month or day.

If an original publication date and a last updated date are provided, use the last updated date. If the more current date is "last reviewed" instead of "last updated," use the original publication date (since the review may not have changed the content).

If there is no date provided, put the letters (n.d.) in round brackets where you'd normally put the date.

Titles should be italicized when the document stands alone (e.g. books, reports, websites, etc.), but not when it is part of a greater whole (e.g. chapters, articles, webpages, etc.).

Website Name

Provide website names in title case without italics after titles of work. Include a period after the website name, followed by the URL. When the author of the work is the same as the website name, omit the site name from the reference.

Retrieval Date

If the content of a website is likely to change over time (e.g. Wikis), you must provide the date you last visited the website.

If a URL is too long to fit onto one line, try to break it at a slash (/).

Entire Website

Note: If you are quoting or paraphrasing part of a website, you should create a reference for a Page or Section. If you mention a website in general, do not create a reference list entry or an in-text citation. Instead, include the name of the website in the text and provide the URL in parentheses.

The Department of Justice has a site called ReportCrime.gov at https://www.reportcrime.gov/ to help people identify and report crimes in their area.

Note : If you cite multiple webpages from a website, create a reference for each. Include the date you retrieved the information if the content is likely to change over time.

Created by a Corporate or Group Author

Corporation/Group/Organization's Name. (Year website was last updated/published, Month Day if given). Title of page: Subtitle (if any). Website Name. URL

Example in which the content is unlikely to change over time:

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. (2019, November 21). Justice served: Case closed for over 40 dogfighting victims . https://www.aspca.org/news/justice-served-case-closed-over-40-dogfighting-victims

Example in which the content is likely to change over time:

Adidas. (2020). Sustainability . Retrieved January 23, 2020, from https://www.adidas.com/us/sustainability

Note: When the author and site name are the same, omit the site name in the reference.

In-Text Paraphrase:

(Corporation/Group's Name, Year)

Example: (Adidas, 2020)

In-Text Quote:

(Corporation/Group's Name, year, Section Name section, para. Paragraph Number if more than one paragraph in section)

Example: (Adidas, 2020, Sustainability section, para. 1)

Note: When there are no visible page numbers or paragraph numbers, you may cite the section heading and the number of the paragraph in that section to identify where your quote came from.

Abbreviating Corporation/Group Author Name in In-Text citations:

Author names for corporations/groups can often be abbreviated. The first time you refer to the author, provide the full name, along with the abbreviation.

If the group name appears in the text of your paper, include the abbreviation in the in-text parenthetical citation:

Example: The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA, 2019) assisted in the rescue of 40 dogs.

If the group name first appears within a parenthetical citation, include the full group name as well as the abbreviation in square brackets:

Example: Forty dogs were rescued in Bendena, Kansas (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals [ASPCA], 2019).

Provide the full group name (without an abbreviation) in the reference list entry: 

Created by an Individual Author 

Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year website was last updated/published, Month Day if given). Title of page: Subtitle (if any). Website Name. URL

Price, D. (2018, March 23). Laziness does not exist . Medium. https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01

Shillam, S. (2018). Message from the Dean . University of Portland. Retrieved October 1, 2018, from https://nursing.up.edu/about/index.html

(Author Last Name, Year)

Example: (Shillam, 2018)

(Author Last Name, Year, Section Name section, para. Paragraph Number if more than one paragraph in section)

Example: (Shillam, 2018, Message from the dean section, para. 2)

Created by an Unknown Author 

Title of page: Subtitle (if any). (Year website was last updated/published, Month Day if given). Website Name. URL

Example in which the content is unlikely to change over time (because the restaurant has closed) :

Jarra's Ethiopian Restaurant [Reviews]. (2012, November 9). Yelp. https://www.yelp.com/biz/jarras-ethiopian-restaurant-portland

Powell's City of Books [Reviews]. (2020, February 25). Yelp. Retrieved February 28, 2020, from https://www.yelp.com/biz/powells-city-of-books-portland-4

("Title," Year)

Example: ("Powell's City of Books," 2020)

("Title," Year, Section Name section, para. Paragraph Number if more than one paragraph in section)

Example: ("Powell's City of Books," 2020, Review Highlights)

Note: When there are no visible page numbers or paragraph numbers, you may cite the section heading and the number of the paragraph in that section to identify where your quote came from. In this example, there is only one paragraph under the specific heading, so no paragraph number is needed.

• << Previous: Government & Legal Documents
• Next: Biblical Sources >>
• Last Updated: Mar 11, 2024 3:40 PM
• URL: https://libguides.up.edu/apa

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• This Or That Game New
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• Education and Communications
• College University and Postgraduate
• Academic Writing

How to Cite a Website

Last Updated: February 9, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Michelle Golden, PhD and by wikiHow staff writer, Jennifer Mueller, JD . Michelle Golden is an English teacher in Athens, Georgia. She received her MA in Language Arts Teacher Education in 2008 and received her PhD in English from Georgia State University in 2015. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 3,558,408 times.

If you're writing a research paper, you'll likely do quite a bit of research online. If you have websites that you want to use as sources for your paper, an entry for the website must appear in the reference list (also called the bibliography or Works Cited) at the end of your paper. You'll also include a citation in-text at the end of any sentence in which you've paraphrased or quoted information that appeared on that website. While the information you need to provide is generally the same across all methods, the way you format that information may vary depending on whether you're using the Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA), or Chicago style of citation.

Sample Citation Templates

• Example: Claymore, Crystal.
• If no individual author is listed, but the website is produced by a government agency, organization, or business, use that name as the author. For example, if you're using a CDC web page as a source, you would list the author as "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

Tip: For your entire Works Cited entry, if an element doesn't exist or isn't provided, simply skip that part of the citation and move on to the next part.

• Example: Claymore, Crystal. "Best-Kept Secrets for Amazing Cupcake Frosting."

• Example: Claymore, Crystal. "Best-Kept Secrets for Amazing Cupcake Frosting." Crystal's Cupcakes , 24 Sept. 2018,

• Example: Claymore, Crystal. "Best-Kept Secrets for Amazing Cupcake Frosting." Crystal's Cupcakes , 24 Sept. 2018, www.crystalscupcakes.com/amazing-frosting.

• Example: Claymore, Crystal. "Best-Kept Secrets for Amazing Cupcake Frosting." Crystal's Cupcakes , www.crystalscupcakes.com/amazing-frosting. Accessed 14 Feb. 2019.

MLA Works Cited Format:

Author Last Name, First Name. "Title of Web Page in Title Case." Name of Website , Day Month Year of publication, URL. Accessed Day Month Year.

• For example, you might write: "The best cupcake frosting techniques are often the least intuitive (Claymore)."
• If you include the author's name in your text, there's no need for a parenthetical citation. For example, you might write: "Award-winning baker Crystal Claymore wasn't afraid to give away all her secrets, sharing her favorite frosting techniques on her website."

• Example: Canadian Cancer Society.

• Example: Canadian Cancer Society. (2017).
• If you're citing several pages from the same website that were published in the same year, add a lower-case letter to the end of the year so you can differentiate them in your in-text citations. For example, you might have "2017a" and "2017b."

• Example: Canadian Cancer Society. (2017). Cancer research.
• If the content you're citing is a stand-alone document, the title should be italicized. This will usually be the case if you're citing a PDF document that appears on a website. If you're not sure, use your best judgment in deciding whether to italicize it or not.

• Example: Canadian Cancer Society. (2017). Cancer research. Retrieved from http://www.cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/cancer-101/cancer-research/?region=on

APA Reference List Format:

Author Last Name, A. A. (Year). Title of web page in sentence case. Retrieved from URL

• For example, you might write: "Clinical trials are used to test new cancer treatments (Canadian Cancer Society, 2017)."
• If you include the author's name in your text, place the year in parentheses immediately after the author's name. For example, you might write: "The Canadian Cancer Society (2017) noted that Canada is a global leader in clinical trials of cancer treatments."

• Example: UN Women.

• Example: UN Women. "Commission on the Status of Women."

• Example: UN Women. "Commission on the Status of Women." UN Women .

• Example: UN Women. "Commission on the Status of Women." UN Women . Accessed February 14, 2019.

• Example: UN Women. "Commission on the Status of Women." UN Women . Accessed February 14, 2019. http://www.unwomen.org/en/csw.

Chicago Bibliography Format:

Author Last Name, First Name. "Title of Web Page in Title Case." Name of Website or Publishing Organization . Accessed Month Day, Year. URL.

• Example: UN Women, "Commission on the Status of Women," UN Women , accessed February 14, 2019, http://www.unwomen.org/en/csw.

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_electronic_sources.html
• ↑ https://libguides.up.edu/mla/common/websites
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_electronic_sources.html
• ↑ https://libraryguides.vu.edu.au/apa-referencing/7Webpages
• ↑ https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/webpage-website-references
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/web_sources.html
• ↑ http://libanswers.snhu.edu/faq/48009

About This Article

To cite a website in text using MLA formatting, include the author's last name in parentheses at the end of the sentence you're using the source in. If there is no author, include the title of the web page instead. If you're using APA formatting, include the author's last name followed by a comma and the year of publication in parentheses at the end of the sentence. If you don't know the author's name, use the name of the web page instead. For more tips from our English co-author, like how to cite a website in Chicago style, scroll down! Did this summary help you? Yes No

• Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Nov 28, 2016

Did this article help you?

Oct 2, 2017

Oct 5, 2018

Abraham Mathews

Nov 28, 2018

Apr 19, 2018

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

wikiHow Tech Help Pro:

Develop the tech skills you need for work and life

Home / Guides / Citation Guides / APA Format / APA Website Citation

How to Cite a Website in APA

This guide explains all of the important steps to referencing a website/web page in your APA research papers. The guidance below follows APA style, 7th edition.

APA format is much different than MLA format and other styles. If you need to cite websites in MLA , or you’re looking for more styles , check out the other resources on EasyBib.com!

Guide Overview

Here’s a run-through of everything this page includes:

What is a website? Am I citing a website or a web page?

Citing a website in the text (in-text citation), citing a website on the reference page, citing a general web article without an author, titles of pages on the web, extra information, publisher information, web addresses and dois, apa format for online news articles, additional website citation examples, troubleshooting.

A website is a place on the Internet that holds a group of individual pages (called web pages).

Think of a website like a tree. A website is the tree, and the individual web pages are the branches. Use YouTube as an example. YouTube is the site, and the individual channel pages and video pages are the branches. Wikipedia is a site, and each article has its own individual web page on that site.

Most of the time, you aren’t trying to cite a whole, entire site, but actually an individual web page. If you used a YouTube video to help you with your research project, you wouldn’t cite the entire YouTube site, you would cite the specific YouTube page the video was found on.

Here’s a similar question we’re often asked when it comes to the APA citation of a web page:

Q: This page describes citing specific pages and articles. Can I cite an entire site?

A: According to the APA manual (7th edition), it is not necessary to cite a site in its entirety in a reference list. Instead, include a reference to the website in the body of your paper and cite any web page individually.

The Department of Justice has just released a new site called ReportCrime.gov at https://www.reportcrime.gov/ to help people identify and report crimes in their area.

In the above passage, the website is stated in the text rather than cited. This guide focuses on how to cite individual pages found on the web (web pages). If you used an entire website, it’s perfectly acceptable to cite the whole site in the text of your paper, as shown above, but for the most part, you want to cite the page where the information was found.

If you’re seeking out an APA citation website to take the stress away from proper referencing, try out EasyBib.com! Stop typing into the search bar, “how to cite a website APA” or “APA in-text citation website.” EasyBib.com is the answer to your referencing questions and needs!

When you include a piece of information from a site in your project, you must include two citations: a brief citation in the text and also a full citation on the reference page.

When it comes to mentions in the text, students are sometimes tempted to put the web address in the body of a project. However, URLs can be long, clunky, and distracting. They should never be written in the body of a project.

Instead of writing the full address in the text, use the last name of the author and the date the source was published. If no author is shown, write the title of the individual page and the date.

For direct quotations, you may use paragraphs to indicate the quotation’s location in the work. Count the paragraphs manually if needed and use the abbreviation “para.” for paragraph.

Check out this in-text citation APA website example:

                 Cite your source

The above APA website in-text citation (the author’s last name and the date the information was published) corresponds to the information on the final page of the project, the reference page.

Here’s how the full APA citation for a web page looks on the final page of the project:

Need more in-text citation APA website info? Here’s more on how to build an APA parenthetical citation . You may also like our full-length guide on how to create an APA in-text citation .

If you’re looking for information on structuring other styles in the text of your paper, check out our page on MLA in-text and parenthetical citations .

In the next section of this APA citation website guide, we’re going to focus on how to format an APA website citation. If you’re wondering how to create an APA citation of a web page, the majority of web references use the structure shown below.

General structure for how to cite a website in APA

Note: A retrieval date is no longer required for online sources. It’s only needed if the content is likely to change over time (such as wikis and social media). The article or page title should be italicized. The URL is at the end and does not have a period after it.

Full reference example:

View Screenshot | Cite your source

Example of an in-text citation for a website in APA:

If you’re looking for an APA format website to do the work for you, try out EasyBib.com’s citation generator. Our APA citation website makes referencing a breeze!

APA citation for website structure:

Do you need to cite a source with no author in APA ? No problem. Wikipedia pages, online dictionary sites, and online encyclopedia sites are just a few examples of sites without an author. When there is no clear individual author, use the website organization (group author) as the author.

Group authors

There are plenty of times when an individual’s name isn’t listed as the author, but the information on the site is written by a group, organization, or company.

In an APA website citation, it is completely acceptable to use the group’s name in the author position. Type it out in its entirety and add a period at the end. Check out the various APA citation of web page examples at the bottom of the page to see group authors in action!

Note: If the author name and website name is the same, just list it once in as the author; leave out the website name section in the APA citation. 

APA citation for website example:

If you’re wondering whether to include the full date in your APA citation for web pages (month, day, and year) or just the year, we have the answer for you here.

An APA citation of web page reference includes the month, day, and year if it’s a site that is updated with new information frequently. Blog posts, newspaper articles, posts from social media profiles, and YouTube videos are just a few of the sources that would display the full date. In an APA citation for web pages, it’s written in this order in parentheses: (Year, Month Day).

If there is any information missing, simply include what is available. Also, if there is no date , indicate this by using (n.d.).

No date APA website example:

If you’re using the EasyBib citation generator to create an APA citation for a web page, our technology structures dates for you in their proper order. It’s the APA format website (and also the APA in-text citation website) you’ve been waiting for. Give it a whirl!

Here’s the advice we provide on many of our guides:

• If the source you are citing is a standalone source, meaning an entire book, television series, or film, the title of such sources should be in italics.
• If, however, you are citing a piece of a larger source, i.e., a journal article, a page on a site, or an episode of a show, the title should be in sentence case and not in italics.

Long story short, do not italicize an APA citation for web pages’ title in the text and on the final page of references.

For full references on the final page of the project, only include capital letters at the beginning of the title, at the beginning of each proper noun, and at the beginning of the first word in the subtitle.

The title is written in the text only when there isn’t an author listed. So, instead of showing the reference as (Author, Date), use (“Title of Page,” Date) in any APA citation for web pages. Notice the switch from sentence case to title case in the text reference.

A little extra information goes a long way when it comes to site citations. If you’re including a unique source type, include information about the medium directly after the title. This information is placed in brackets. Only the first letter is capitalized.

Here are a few examples you might see in an APA citation for a web page:

[Image attached]

[Infographic]

[Status update]

To see some of the extra information in action, scroll down to the examples towards the bottom of this page.

Speaking of extra information, it may not hurt to get some extra details on grammar topics in that brain of yours. Brush up on your adjective , pronoun , and interjection knowledge with our comprehensive guides!

Any information related to the publisher is not invited to the web citation party. In an APA citation of a web page, you do not need to include information about the company that made the site, where its offices are located, or any other similar information about the company in any web references. One thing less to worry about in your APA citation for web pages!

Other source types are much different, so before you exclude publisher information from all of your references, make sure you check out our APA citation page. While you’re at it, check out our other helpful resources, such as APA reference page  and MLA works cited .

We also need a web address and DOI number in an APA citation for a web page. Including site addresses and DOIs are an absolute necessity. Addresses and DOIs (which stand for direct object identifiers) are usually the last item in an APA website citation.

For sites, after adding the full URL to the APA citation for a web page, do not end it with a period. If the address is very long, it is acceptable to roll it onto the next line, but break it up so that a type of punctuation mark or symbol is the first item closest to the left margin. Check out the APA citation of a webpage URL below.

APA citation of a webpage example of a properly structured URL:

DOI numbers are assigned by publishers to electronic sources such as journal articles, e-books, datasets, and more. They’re a string of numbers and sometimes other characters. If the source you’re using has a DOI number assigned to it, place it at the end of the APA website citation, instead of the URL, in this format: https://doi.org/10.XXXXXXXXX. Place the DOI string in place of the X’s shown above.

DOIs were created to combat the problem of broken links and 404 errors (pages taken down). Think about it: if a webpage is taken off of the Internet, it can be pretty difficult to find a copy of it. If you’re lucky, an archive site may have a copy stored somewhere, but for the most part, when sites are gone, they’re gone. DOIs are permanent, making them the ideal choice to include in any APA citation for webpages.

APA properly structured DOI:

APA differentiates between traditional newspapers that are online versus news websites with no daily/weekly/monthly newspaper or magazine edition. Unsure what you’re citing? Follow this decision tree:

• YES –> Cite it as a newspaper article.
• NO –> Cite it as a web page or a news site article.
• NO –> Cite it as a web page or news site article.

Online news article APA example:

News sites with no associated daily/weekly/monthly publication should be cited like a web page. That means the article title is italicized and the publisher/site name is in plan font. This format applies to articles from these sites:

• MSNBC Fox News

Newspaper article online APA example:

Sites associated with a daily/weekly/monthly publication should be cited as a newspaper article. That means the article title is in plain font and the publisher/site name is italicized. This format applies to articles from these sites:

• The New York Times
• The Guardian
• The Times of India
• The Wall Street Journal
• The Washington Post
• Yomiuri Shimbun

Below are various web reference examples to give you a quick visual of how pages are structured and organized. Quick reminder that if you’re trying to create a reference for an e-book found on the web, use the APA book citation page. In addition, if it’s an online article from journal, use our APA journal page.

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to build your references, EasyBib.com is an APA citation website that does the work for you. Try it out and say hello to stress-free referencing and goodbye to constantly searching for “how to cite a website APA” or “how to cite APA” on search engines. The APA offers more information here .

How to cite a group/organization/company:

How to cite a blog post in apa:.

The structure is the same, but the format is slightly different: The blog article title is in plain text, and the name of the blog is italicized.

APA citation of a web page example for Facebook:

The text of the post is italicized, while the site name (Facebook) is in plain text.

APA citation of a web page example for Twitter:

Cite your source

If the name of the author is unknown, start the APA citation of a web page for Twitter with the username.

Need another set of eyes to check your paper for grammar and spelling edits? Not quite sure if every determiner , preposition , or conjunction is where it belongs? Check out our grammar and plagiarism checker . It’s the answer to all of your grammar questions!

If you’re still confused and typing into the search bar, “how to cite APA” or “how to cite a website APA,” try out EasyBib.com’s reference generator. It’s fast, easy, and allows you to focus on your writing and research, and less on your references. The best part? It creates both types of references. It has an in-text citation website APA generator and also a full reference generator! What are you waiting for? Go see the magic happen!

Here’s a quick video overview of how to cite a website in APA:

Solution #1: Determining the website company, the author, the publisher, or both (APA)

A website citation included in an APA-format bibliography doesn’t need a publisher, so you do not need to worry whether the website company is the publisher of a page you want to cite!

If an author isn’t credited on a given webpage, the website company should be listed as the author. This also goes for online encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.

Here’s an example for a full bibliography:

Roman empire. (2022, February 6). In Wikipedia . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire

Here is an example for an in-text citation:

(“Roman Empire,” 2022)

Solution #2: How to cite images and videos from social media in APA format

Making a bibliographic citation for a photo or video from social media is similar to making a citation for any website. Examples that fall into this category include photos, videos, or social media-specific mediums like highlights, reels, moments, or lives.

For your full citation in your bibliography, use the caption of the photo or video, up to 20 words, as the title. Denote the style of media in brackets, following the title.

For sources like Instagram Reels, Highlights, and other media whose exact date of posting is hard to discern, include the date you found and cited the photo or video rather than the original date the media was shared.

Here are examples of bibliographic citations:

World Wildlife Foundation [wwf]. (2021, October 20). This year marks our 60 years of action for people and nature. Together, we’ve done so much… [Photo]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/CVQQbF_KmA6/

New York Times [nytimes]. (n.d.) NYC Marathon 2021 [Highlight]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17928514339867051/

Here are the corresponding in-text citations:

(World Wildlife Foundation, 2021)

(New York Times, 2021)

Solution #3: How emojis are cited in APA format

If the website or social media post you are citing contains an emoji, keep the emoji in your full bibliographic citation without altering it.

Reference list example:

Grande, A [arianagrande]. (2021, October 18) the final #voicebattles begin tonight @nbcthevoice.🧚🏼‍♂️ thank you @kchenoweth, i love you. [Photo]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/CVLfY_vv_3c/

In-text citation example:

(Grande, 2021)

If you have trouble pasting the emoji into your full citation, put the emoji’s name followed by the word “emoji” all in brackets within your citation instead. Use Unicode’s Emoji Charts to look up the widely accepted, technical name of the emoji you want to cite.

Grande, A [arianagrande]. the final the final #voicebattles  begin tonight  @nbcthevoice . [woman fairy emoji] thank you  @kchenoweth , i love you. [Photo]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/CVLfY_vv_3c/

This guide is not officially associated with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, but it does provide information in line with the manual. 

APA Formatting Guide

APA Formatting

• Annotated Bibliography
• Block Quotes
• et al Usage
• In-text Citations
• Multiple Authors
• Paraphrasing
• Page Numbers
• Parenthetical Citations
• Reference Page
• Sample Paper
• APA 7 Updates
• View APA Guide

Citation Examples

• Book Chapter
• Journal Article
• Magazine Article
• Newspaper Article
• Website (no author)
• View all APA Examples

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!

Let us improve this post!

Tell us how we can improve this post?

You will need the webpage’s author’s name, publication date, title of the page, website name, and the URL.

Here is an example with an author:

Geggel, L. (2021, July 6). A brief history of dinosaurs . LiveScience. https://www.livescience.com/3945-history-dinosaurs.html

Usually, if no author is shown the website is assumed to be the author. In these cases, the website name replaces the author name in the beginning of the reference.

For example:

National Park Service. (2018, July 23). Night skies as a cultural-historical resource . https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nightskies/cultural.htm

The URL of a website is mandatory if you cite a website or a webpage. Where you include the URL depends on the type of citation. To cite a website as a general reference without any reference to a specific page or particular details, simply add the name of the website in the text and include the URL in parentheses. There is no need to add a reference list entry. However, to cite a webpage on a website, you need to provide both an in-text citation and a reference list entry. Do not add the URL in the in-text citation. Just add the author’s name and year. The URL is given only in the reference list entry. Templates for in-text citations and reference list entries of a website or webpage along with examples are given below.

Website as a general reference

In-text style:

We took the data from the Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India (https://censusindia.gov.in/).

Webpage of a website

In-text citation templates and examples:

Author Surname (publication year)

Skelton (2017)

Parenthetical:

(Author Surname, publication year)

(Skelton, 2017)

Note that month and day are not mentioned in in-text citations.

Reference list entry template and example:

Author Surname, F. M. (Year, Month Day). Title of the webpage. Name of the Site. URL

Skelton, R. (2017, February 16). Fact check’s return perfect timing in ‘post truth’ age. ABC Opinion. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-16/fact-check-return-perfect-timing-in-post-truth-age/8277268

APA Citation Examples

Writing Tools

Citation Generators

Other Citation Styles

Plagiarism Checker

Upload a paper to check for plagiarism against billions of sources and get advanced writing suggestions for clarity and style.

Get Started

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

MLA In-Text Citations: The Basics

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook (9 th ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.

Guidelines for referring to the works of others in your text using MLA style are covered throughout the  MLA Handbook  and in chapter 7 of the  MLA Style Manual . Both books provide extensive examples, so it's a good idea to consult them if you want to become even more familiar with MLA guidelines or if you have a particular reference question.

Basic in-text citation rules

In MLA Style, referring to the works of others in your text is done using parenthetical citations . This method involves providing relevant source information in parentheses whenever a sentence uses a quotation or paraphrase. Usually, the simplest way to do this is to put all of the source information in parentheses at the end of the sentence (i.e., just before the period). However, as the examples below will illustrate, there are situations where it makes sense to put the parenthetical elsewhere in the sentence, or even to leave information out.

General Guidelines

• The source information required in a parenthetical citation depends (1) upon the source medium (e.g. print, web, DVD) and (2) upon the source’s entry on the Works Cited page.
• Any source information that you provide in-text must correspond to the source information on the Works Cited page. More specifically, whatever signal word or phrase you provide to your readers in the text must be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of the corresponding entry on the Works Cited page.

In-text citations: Author-page style

MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page. The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence. For example:

Both citations in the examples above, (263) and (Wordsworth 263), tell readers that the information in the sentence can be located on page 263 of a work by an author named Wordsworth. If readers want more information about this source, they can turn to the Works Cited page, where, under the name of Wordsworth, they would find the following information:

Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads . Oxford UP, 1967.

In-text citations for print sources with known author

For print sources like books, magazines, scholarly journal articles, and newspapers, provide a signal word or phrase (usually the author’s last name) and a page number. If you provide the signal word/phrase in the sentence, you do not need to include it in the parenthetical citation.

These examples must correspond to an entry that begins with Burke, which will be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of an entry on the Works Cited page:

Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method . University of California Press, 1966.

In-text citations for print sources by a corporate author

When a source has a corporate author, it is acceptable to use the name of the corporation followed by the page number for the in-text citation. You should also use abbreviations (e.g., nat'l for national) where appropriate, so as to avoid interrupting the flow of reading with overly long parenthetical citations.

In-text citations for sources with non-standard labeling systems

If a source uses a labeling or numbering system other than page numbers, such as a script or poetry, precede the citation with said label. When citing a poem, for instance, the parenthetical would begin with the word “line”, and then the line number or range. For example, the examination of William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” would be cited as such:

The speaker makes an ardent call for the exploration of the connection between the violence of nature and the divinity of creation. “In what distant deeps or skies. / Burnt the fire of thine eyes," they ask in reference to the tiger as they attempt to reconcile their intimidation with their relationship to creationism (lines 5-6).

Longer labels, such as chapters (ch.) and scenes (sc.), should be abbreviated.

In-text citations for print sources with no known author

When a source has no known author, use a shortened title of the work instead of an author name, following these guidelines.

Place the title in quotation marks if it's a short work (such as an article) or italicize it if it's a longer work (e.g. plays, books, television shows, entire Web sites) and provide a page number if it is available.

Titles longer than a standard noun phrase should be shortened into a noun phrase by excluding articles. For example, To the Lighthouse would be shortened to Lighthouse .

If the title cannot be easily shortened into a noun phrase, the title should be cut after the first clause, phrase, or punctuation:

In this example, since the reader does not know the author of the article, an abbreviated title appears in the parenthetical citation, and the full title of the article appears first at the left-hand margin of its respective entry on the Works Cited page. Thus, the writer includes the title in quotation marks as the signal phrase in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader directly to the source on the Works Cited page. The Works Cited entry appears as follows:

"The Impact of Global Warming in North America." Global Warming: Early Signs . 1999. www.climatehotmap.org/. Accessed 23 Mar. 2009.

If the title of the work begins with a quotation mark, such as a title that refers to another work, that quote or quoted title can be used as the shortened title. The single quotation marks must be included in the parenthetical, rather than the double quotation.

Parenthetical citations and Works Cited pages, used in conjunction, allow readers to know which sources you consulted in writing your essay, so that they can either verify your interpretation of the sources or use them in their own scholarly work.

Author-page citation for classic and literary works with multiple editions

Page numbers are always required, but additional citation information can help literary scholars, who may have a different edition of a classic work, like Marx and Engels's  The Communist Manifesto . In such cases, give the page number of your edition (making sure the edition is listed in your Works Cited page, of course) followed by a semicolon, and then the appropriate abbreviations for volume (vol.), book (bk.), part (pt.), chapter (ch.), section (sec.), or paragraph (par.). For example:

Author-page citation for works in an anthology, periodical, or collection

When you cite a work that appears inside a larger source (for instance, an article in a periodical or an essay in a collection), cite the author of the  internal source (i.e., the article or essay). For example, to cite Albert Einstein's article "A Brief Outline of the Theory of Relativity," which was published in  Nature  in 1921, you might write something like this:

See also our page on documenting periodicals in the Works Cited .

Citing authors with same last names

Sometimes more information is necessary to identify the source from which a quotation is taken. For instance, if two or more authors have the same last name, provide both authors' first initials (or even the authors' full name if different authors share initials) in your citation. For example:

Citing a work by multiple authors

For a source with two authors, list the authors’ last names in the text or in the parenthetical citation:

Corresponding Works Cited entry:

Best, David, and Sharon Marcus. “Surface Reading: An Introduction.” Representations , vol. 108, no. 1, Fall 2009, pp. 1-21. JSTOR, doi:10.1525/rep.2009.108.1.1

For a source with three or more authors, list only the first author’s last name, and replace the additional names with et al.

Franck, Caroline, et al. “Agricultural Subsidies and the American Obesity Epidemic.” American Journal of Preventative Medicine , vol. 45, no. 3, Sept. 2013, pp. 327-333.

Citing multiple works by the same author

If you cite more than one work by an author, include a shortened title for the particular work from which you are quoting to distinguish it from the others. Put short titles of books in italics and short titles of articles in quotation marks.

Citing two articles by the same author :

Citing two books by the same author :

Additionally, if the author's name is not mentioned in the sentence, format your citation with the author's name followed by a comma, followed by a shortened title of the work, and, when appropriate, the page number(s):

Citing multivolume works

If you cite from different volumes of a multivolume work, always include the volume number followed by a colon. Put a space after the colon, then provide the page number(s). (If you only cite from one volume, provide only the page number in parentheses.)

Citing the Bible

In your first parenthetical citation, you want to make clear which Bible you're using (and underline or italicize the title), as each version varies in its translation, followed by book (do not italicize or underline), chapter, and verse. For example:

If future references employ the same edition of the Bible you’re using, list only the book, chapter, and verse in the parenthetical citation:

John of Patmos echoes this passage when describing his vision (Rev. 4.6-8).

Citing indirect sources

Sometimes you may have to use an indirect source. An indirect source is a source cited within another source. For such indirect quotations, use "qtd. in" to indicate the source you actually consulted. For example:

Note that, in most cases, a responsible researcher will attempt to find the original source, rather than citing an indirect source.

Citing transcripts, plays, or screenplays

Sources that take the form of a dialogue involving two or more participants have special guidelines for their quotation and citation. Each line of dialogue should begin with the speaker's name written in all capitals and indented half an inch. A period follows the name (e.g., JAMES.) . After the period, write the dialogue. Each successive line after the first should receive an additional indentation. When another person begins speaking, start a new line with that person's name indented only half an inch. Repeat this pattern each time the speaker changes. You can include stage directions in the quote if they appear in the original source.

Conclude with a parenthetical that explains where to find the excerpt in the source. Usually, the author and title of the source can be given in a signal phrase before quoting the excerpt, so the concluding parenthetical will often just contain location information like page numbers or act/scene indicators.

Here is an example from O'Neill's  The Iceman Cometh.

WILLIE. (Pleadingly) Give me a drink, Rocky. Harry said it was all right. God, I need a drink.

ROCKY. Den grab it. It's right under your nose.

WILLIE. (Avidly) Thanks. (He takes the bottle with both twitching hands and tilts it to his lips and gulps down the whiskey in big swallows.) (1.1)

Citing non-print or sources from the Internet

With more and more scholarly work published on the Internet, you may have to cite sources you found in digital environments. While many sources on the Internet should not be used for scholarly work (reference the OWL's  Evaluating Sources of Information  resource), some Web sources are perfectly acceptable for research. When creating in-text citations for electronic, film, or Internet sources, remember that your citation must reference the source on your Works Cited page.

Sometimes writers are confused with how to craft parenthetical citations for electronic sources because of the absence of page numbers. However, these sorts of entries often do not require a page number in the parenthetical citation. For electronic and Internet sources, follow the following guidelines:

• Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation (e.g. author name, article name, website name, film name).
• Do not provide paragraph numbers or page numbers based on your Web browser’s print preview function.
• Unless you must list the Web site name in the signal phrase in order to get the reader to the appropriate entry, do not include URLs in-text. Only provide partial URLs such as when the name of the site includes, for example, a domain name, like  CNN.com  or  Forbes.com,  as opposed to writing out http://www.cnn.com or http://www.forbes.com.

Miscellaneous non-print sources

Two types of non-print sources you may encounter are films and lectures/presentations:

In the two examples above “Herzog” (a film’s director) and “Yates” (a presentor) lead the reader to the first item in each citation’s respective entry on the Works Cited page:

Herzog, Werner, dir. Fitzcarraldo . Perf. Klaus Kinski. Filmverlag der Autoren, 1982.

Yates, Jane. "Invention in Rhetoric and Composition." Gaps Addressed: Future Work in Rhetoric and Composition, CCCC, Palmer House Hilton, 2002. Address.

Electronic sources

Electronic sources may include web pages and online news or magazine articles:

In the first example (an online magazine article), the writer has chosen not to include the author name in-text; however, two entries from the same author appear in the Works Cited. Thus, the writer includes both the author’s last name and the article title in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader to the appropriate entry on the Works Cited page (see below).

In the second example (a web page), a parenthetical citation is not necessary because the page does not list an author, and the title of the article, “MLA Formatting and Style Guide,” is used as a signal phrase within the sentence. If the title of the article was not named in the sentence, an abbreviated version would appear in a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence. Both corresponding Works Cited entries are as follows:

Taylor, Rumsey. "Fitzcarraldo." Slant , 13 Jun. 2003, www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/fitzcarraldo/. Accessed 29 Sep. 2009. 

"MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The Purdue OWL , 2 Aug. 2016, owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/. Accessed 2 April 2018.

Multiple citations

To cite multiple sources in the same parenthetical reference, separate the citations by a semi-colon:

Time-based media sources

When creating in-text citations for media that has a runtime, such as a movie or podcast, include the range of hours, minutes and seconds you plan to reference. For example: (00:02:15-00:02:35).

When a citation is not needed

Common sense and ethics should determine your need for documenting sources. You do not need to give sources for familiar proverbs, well-known quotations, or common knowledge (For example, it is expected that U.S. citizens know that George Washington was the first President.). Remember that citing sources is a rhetorical task, and, as such, can vary based on your audience. If you’re writing for an expert audience of a scholarly journal, for example, you may need to deal with expectations of what constitutes “common knowledge” that differ from common norms.

Other Sources

The MLA Handbook describes how to cite many different kinds of authors and content creators. However, you may occasionally encounter a source or author category that the handbook does not describe, making the best way to proceed can be unclear.

In these cases, it's typically acceptable to apply the general principles of MLA citation to the new kind of source in a way that's consistent and sensible. A good way to do this is to simply use the standard MLA directions for a type of source that resembles the source you want to cite.

You may also want to investigate whether a third-party organization has provided directions for how to cite this kind of source. For example, Norquest College provides guidelines for citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers⁠ —an author category that does not appear in the MLA Handbook . In cases like this, however, it's a good idea to ask your instructor or supervisor whether using third-party citation guidelines might present problems.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, automatically generate references for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Referencing
• Harvard In-Text Citation | A Complete Guide & Examples

Harvard In-Text Citation | A Complete Guide & Examples

Published on 30 April 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on 5 May 2022.

An in-text citation should appear wherever you quote or paraphrase a source in your writing, pointing your reader to the full reference .

In Harvard style , citations appear in brackets in the text. An in-text citation consists of the last name of the author,  the year of publication, and a page number if relevant.

Up to three authors are included in Harvard in-text citations. If there are four or more authors, the citation is shortened with et al .

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Be assured that you'll submit flawless writing. Upload your document to correct all your mistakes.

Table of contents

Including page numbers in citations, where to place harvard in-text citations, citing sources with missing information, frequently asked questions about harvard in-text citations.

When you quote directly from a source or paraphrase a specific passage, your in-text citation must include a page number to specify where the relevant passage is located.

Use ‘p.’ for a single page and ‘pp.’ for a page range:

• Meanwhile, another commentator asserts that the economy is ‘on the downturn’ (Singh, 2015, p. 13 ).
• Wilson (2015, pp. 12–14 ) makes an argument for the efficacy of the technique.

If you are summarising the general argument of a source or paraphrasing ideas that recur throughout the text, no page number is needed.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

When incorporating citations into your text, you can either name the author directly in the text or only include the author’s name in brackets.

Naming the author in the text

When you name the author in the sentence itself, the year and (if relevant) page number are typically given in brackets straight after the name:

Naming the author directly in your sentence is the best approach when you want to critique or comment on the source.

Naming the author in brackets

When you  you haven’t mentioned the author’s name in your sentence, include it inside the brackets. The citation is generally placed after the relevant quote or paraphrase, or at the end of the sentence, before the full stop:

Multiple citations can be included in one place, listed in order of publication year and separated by semicolons:

This type of citation is useful when you want to support a claim or summarise the overall findings of sources.

Common mistakes with in-text citations

In-text citations in brackets should not appear as the subject of your sentences. Anything that’s essential to the meaning of a sentence should be written outside the brackets:

• (Smith, 2019) argues that…
• Smith (2019) argues that…

Similarly, don’t repeat the author’s name in the bracketed citation and in the sentence itself:

• As Caulfield (Caulfield, 2020) writes…
• As Caulfield (2020) writes…

Sometimes you won’t have access to all the source information you need for an in-text citation. Here’s what to do if you’re missing the publication date, author’s name, or page numbers for a source.

If a source doesn’t list a clear publication date, as is sometimes the case with online sources or historical documents, replace the date with the words ‘no date’:

When it’s not clear who the author of a source is, you’ll sometimes be able to substitute a corporate author – the group or organisation responsible for the publication:

When there’s no corporate author to cite, you can use the title of the source in place of the author’s name:

No page numbers

If you quote from a source without page numbers, such as a website, you can just omit this information if it’s a short text – it should be easy enough to find the quote without it.

If you quote from a longer source without page numbers, it’s best to find an alternate location marker, such as a paragraph number or subheading, and include that:

A Harvard in-text citation should appear in brackets every time you quote, paraphrase, or refer to information from a source.

The citation can appear immediately after the quotation or paraphrase, or at the end of the sentence. If you’re quoting, place the citation outside of the quotation marks but before any other punctuation like a comma or full stop.

In Harvard referencing, up to three author names are included in an in-text citation or reference list entry. When there are four or more authors, include only the first, followed by ‘ et al. ’

In Harvard style , when you quote directly from a source that includes page numbers, your in-text citation must include a page number. For example: (Smith, 2014, p. 33).

You can also include page numbers to point the reader towards a passage that you paraphrased . If you refer to the general ideas or findings of the source as a whole, you don’t need to include a page number.

When you want to use a quote but can’t access the original source, you can cite it indirectly. In the in-text citation , first mention the source you want to refer to, and then the source in which you found it. For example:

It’s advisable to avoid indirect citations wherever possible, because they suggest you don’t have full knowledge of the sources you’re citing. Only use an indirect citation if you can’t reasonably gain access to the original source.

In Harvard style referencing , to distinguish between two sources by the same author that were published in the same year, you add a different letter after the year for each source:

• (Smith, 2019a)
• (Smith, 2019b)

Add ‘a’ to the first one you cite, ‘b’ to the second, and so on. Do the same in your bibliography or reference list .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2022, May 05). Harvard In-Text Citation | A Complete Guide & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 9 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/referencing/harvard-in-text-citation/

Is this article helpful?

Jack Caulfield

Other students also liked, a quick guide to harvard referencing | citation examples, harvard style bibliography | format & examples, referencing books in harvard style | templates & examples, scribbr apa citation checker.

An innovative new tool that checks your APA citations with AI software. Say goodbye to inaccurate citations!

How do I quote bulleted or numbered points from a source?

Note: This post relates to content in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook . For up-to-date guidance, see the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook .

If you need to quote from a bulleted or numbered list, you can reproduce the list in your essay, as in the example below:

Parvini organizes the material into four groups: Early modern Christian beliefs inherited from the medieval period, indeed the very period that Shakespeare is writing about in the history plays The structure of feudal and semifeudal society Emergent humanist ideas about history and politics imported from Renaissance Italy, especially those of Niccolò Machiavelli The key events of the Wars of the Roses and the corresponding key plot points of Shakespeare’s two tetralogies. (95) Work Cited Parvini, Neema. “Historicism ‘By Stealth’: History, Politics, and Power in  Richard II  and  Henry IV. ”  Approaches to  Teaching Shakespeare’s English History Plays , edited by Laurie Ellinghausen, Modern Language Association of America, 2017, pp. 94–99.

You can also quote from each point in the list, perhaps paring down some of the information:

Parvini organizes the material as follows: “early modern Christian beliefs inherited from the medieval period,” “the structure of feudal and semifeudal society,” “emergent humanist ideas about history and politics imported from Renaissance Italy,” and “the key events of the War of the Roses and the corresponding key plot points of Shakesepare’s two tetralogies” (95).

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

• LISTEN & FOLLOW
• Apple Podcasts
• Google Podcasts
• Amazon Music

Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed.

The physical sensations of watching a total solar eclipse

Regina G. Barber

Science writer David Baron witnesses his first total solar eclipse in Aruba, 1998. He says seeing one is "like you've left the solar system and are looking back from some other world." Paul Myers hide caption

Science writer David Baron witnesses his first total solar eclipse in Aruba, 1998. He says seeing one is "like you've left the solar system and are looking back from some other world."

David Baron can pinpoint the first time he got addicted to chasing total solar eclipses, when the moon completely covers up the sun. It was 1998 and he was on the Caribbean island of Aruba. "It changed my life. It was the most spectacular thing I'd ever seen," he says.

Baron, author of the 2017 book American Eclipse: A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World , wants others to witness its majesty too. On April 8, millions of people across North America will get that chance — a total solar eclipse will appear in the sky. Baron promises it will be a surreal, otherworldly experience. "It's like you've left the solar system and are looking back from some other world."

Baron, who is a former NPR science reporter, talks to Life Kit about what to expect when viewing a total solar eclipse, including the sensations you may feel and the strange lighting effects in the sky. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Baron views the beginning of a solar eclipse with friends in Western Australia in 2023. Baron says getting to see the solar corona during a total eclipse is "the most dazzling sight in the heavens." Photographs by David Baron; Bronson Arcuri, Kara Frame, CJ Riculan/NPR; Collage by Becky Harlan/NPR hide caption

Baron views the beginning of a solar eclipse with friends in Western Australia in 2023. Baron says getting to see the solar corona during a total eclipse is "the most dazzling sight in the heavens."

What does it feel like to experience a total solar eclipse — those few precious minutes when the moon completely covers up the sun?

It is beautiful and absolutely magnificent. It comes on all of a sudden. As soon as the moon blocks the last rays of the sun, you're plunged into this weird twilight in the middle of the day. You look up and the blue sky has been torn away. On any given day, the blue sky overhead acts as a screen that keeps us from seeing what's in space. And suddenly that's gone. So you can look into the middle of the solar system and see the sun and the planets together.

Can you tell me about the sounds and the emotions you're feeling?

A total solar eclipse is so much more than something you just see with your eyes. It's something you experience with your whole body. [With the drop in sunlight], birds will be going crazy. Crickets may be chirping. If you're around other people, they're going to be screaming and crying [with all their emotions from seeing the eclipse]. The air temperature drops because the sunlight suddenly turns off. And you're immersed in the moon's shadow. It doesn't feel real.

Everything you need to know about solar eclipse glasses before April 8

In your 2017 Ted Talk , you said you felt like your eyesight was failing in the moments before totality. Can you go into that a little more?

The lighting effects are very weird. Before you get to the total eclipse, you have a progressive partial eclipse as the moon slowly covers the sun. So over the course of an hour [or so], the sunlight will be very slowly dimming. It's as if you're in a room in a house and someone is very slowly turning down the dimmer switch. For most of that time your eyes are adjusting and you don't notice it. But then there's a point at which the light's getting so dim that your eyes can't adjust, and weird things happen. Your eyes are less able to see color. It's as if the landscape is losing its color. Also there's an effect where the shadows get very strange.

Crescent-shaped shadows cast by the solar eclipse before it reaches totality appear on a board at an eclipse-viewing event in Antelope, Ore., 2017. Kara Frame and CJ Riculan/NPR hide caption

You see these crescents on the ground.

There are two things that happen. One is if you look under a tree, the spaces between leaves or branches will act as pinhole projectors. So you'll see tiny little crescents everywhere. But there's another effect. As the sun goes from this big orb in the sky to something much smaller, shadows grow sharper. As you're nearing the total eclipse, if you have the sun behind you and you look at your shadow on the ground, you might see individual hairs on your head. It's just very odd.

Some people might say that seeing the partial eclipse is just as good. They don't need to go to the path of totality.

A partial solar eclipse is a very interesting experience. If you're in an area where you see a deep partial eclipse, the sun will become a crescent like the moon. You can only look at it with eye protection. Don't look at it with the naked eye . The light can get eerie. It's fun, but it is not a thousandth as good as a total eclipse.

A total eclipse is a fundamentally different experience, because it's only when the moon completely blocks the sun that you can actually take off the eclipse glasses and look with the naked eye at the sun.

And you will see a sun you've never seen before. That bright surface is gone. What you're actually looking at is the sun's outer atmosphere, the solar corona. It's the most dazzling sight in the heavens. It's this beautiful textured thing. It looks sort of like a wreath or a crown made out of tinsel or strands of silk. It shimmers in space. The shape is constantly changing. And you will only see that if you're in the path of the total eclipse.

Shots - Health News

Watching a solar eclipse without the right filters can cause eye damage. here's why.

So looking at a partial eclipse is not the same?

It is not at all the same. Drive those few miles. Get into the path of totality.

This is really your chance to see a total eclipse. The next one isn't happening across the U.S. for another 20 years.

The next significant total solar eclipse in the United States won't be until 2045. That one will go from California to Florida and will cross my home state of Colorado. I've got it on my calendar.

The digital story was written by Malaka Gharib and edited by Sylvie Douglis and Meghan Keane. The visual editor is Beck Harlan. We'd love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at [email protected].

Listen to Life Kit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify , and sign up for our newsletter .

NPR will be sharing highlights here from across the NPR Network throughout the day Monday if you're unable to get out and see it in real time.

Correction April 3, 2024

In a previous audio version of this story, we made reference to an upcoming 2025 total solar eclipse. The solar eclipse in question will take place in 2045.

• Life Kit: Life Skills
• total eclipse
• solar eclipse

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Working with sources
• How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

Published on April 8, 2022 by Courtney Gahan and Jack Caulfield. Revised on June 1, 2023.

Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas into your own words. Paraphrasing a source involves changing the wording while preserving the original meaning.

Paraphrasing is an alternative to  quoting (copying someone’s exact words and putting them in quotation marks ). In academic writing, it’s usually better to integrate sources by paraphrasing instead of quoting. It shows that you have understood the source, reads more smoothly, and keeps your own voice front and center.

Every time you paraphrase, it’s important to cite the source . Also take care not to use wording that is too similar to the original. Otherwise, you could be at risk of committing plagiarism .

What is your plagiarism score?

Compare your paper with 99.3 billion webpages and 8 million publications.

• Best plagiarism checker of 2021
• Plagiarism report & percentage
• Largest plagiarism database

Scribbr Plagiarism Checker

Table of contents

How to paraphrase in five easy steps, how to paraphrase correctly, examples of paraphrasing, how to cite a paraphrase, paraphrasing vs. quoting, paraphrasing vs. summarizing, avoiding plagiarism when you paraphrase, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about paraphrasing.

If you’re struggling to get to grips with the process of paraphrasing, check out our easy step-by-step guide in the video below.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Putting an idea into your own words can be easier said than done. Let’s say you want to paraphrase the text below, about population decline in a particular species of sea snails.

Incorrect paraphrasing

You might make a first attempt to paraphrase it by swapping out a few words for  synonyms .

Like other sea creatures inhabiting the vicinity of highly populated coasts, horse conchs have lost substantial territory to advancement and contamination , including preferred breeding grounds along mud flats and seagrass beds. Their Gulf home is also heating up due to global warming , which scientists think further puts pressure on the creatures , predicated upon the harmful effects extra warmth has on other large mollusks (Barnett, 2022).

This attempt at paraphrasing doesn’t change the sentence structure or order of information, only some of the word choices. And the synonyms chosen are poor:

• “Advancement and contamination” doesn’t really convey the same meaning as “development and pollution.”
• Sometimes the changes make the tone less academic: “home” for “habitat” and “sea creatures” for “marine animals.”
• Adding phrases like “inhabiting the vicinity of” and “puts pressure on” makes the text needlessly long-winded.
• Global warming is related to climate change, but they don’t mean exactly the same thing.

Because of this, the text reads awkwardly, is longer than it needs to be, and remains too close to the original phrasing. This means you risk being accused of plagiarism .

Correct paraphrasing

Let’s look at a more effective way of paraphrasing the same text.

Here, we’ve:

• Only included the information that’s relevant to our argument (note that the paraphrase is shorter than the original)
• Introduced the information with the signal phrase “Scientists believe that …”
• Retained key terms like “development and pollution,” since changing them could alter the meaning
• Structured sentences in our own way instead of copying the structure of the original
• Started from a different point, presenting information in a different order

Because of this, we’re able to clearly convey the relevant information from the source without sticking too close to the original phrasing.

Explore the tabs below to see examples of paraphrasing in action.

• Journal article
• Newspaper article
• Magazine article

Once you have your perfectly paraphrased text, you need to ensure you credit the original author. You’ll always paraphrase sources in the same way, but you’ll have to use a different type of in-text citation depending on what citation style you follow.

Generate accurate citations with Scribbr

Scribbr citation checker new.

The AI-powered Citation Checker helps you avoid common mistakes such as:

• Missing commas and periods
• Incorrect usage of “et al.”
• Ampersands (&) in narrative citations
• Missing reference entries

It’s a good idea to paraphrase instead of quoting in most cases because:

• Paraphrasing shows that you fully understand the meaning of a text
• Your own voice remains dominant throughout your paper
• Quotes reduce the readability of your text

But that doesn’t mean you should never quote. Quotes are appropriate when:

• Giving a precise definition
• Saying something about the author’s language or style (e.g., in a literary analysis paper)
• Providing evidence in support of an argument
• Critiquing or analyzing a specific claim

A paraphrase puts a specific passage into your own words. It’s typically a similar length to the original text, or slightly shorter.

When you boil a longer piece of writing down to the key points, so that the result is a lot shorter than the original, this is called summarizing .

Paraphrasing and quoting are important tools for presenting specific information from sources. But if the information you want to include is more general (e.g., the overarching argument of a whole article), summarizing is more appropriate.

When paraphrasing, you have to be careful to avoid accidental plagiarism .

This can happen if the paraphrase is too similar to the original quote, with phrases or whole sentences that are identical (and should therefore be in quotation marks). It can also happen if you fail to properly cite the source.

Paraphrasing tools are widely used by students, and can be especially useful for non-native speakers who may find academic writing particularly challenging. While these can be helpful for a bit of extra inspiration, use these tools sparingly, keeping academic integrity in mind.

To make sure you’ve properly paraphrased and cited all your sources, you could elect to run a plagiarism check before submitting your paper. And of course, always be sure to read your source material yourself and take the first stab at paraphrasing on your own.

If you want to know more about ChatGPT, AI tools , citation , and plagiarism , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• ChatGPT vs human editor
• ChatGPT citations
• Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
• Using ChatGPT for your studies
• What is ChatGPT?
• Chicago style
• Critical thinking

 Plagiarism

• Types of plagiarism
• Self-plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Academic integrity
• Consequences of plagiarism
• Common knowledge

To paraphrase effectively, don’t just take the original sentence and swap out some of the words for synonyms. Instead, try:

• Reformulating the sentence (e.g., change active to passive , or start from a different point)
• Combining information from multiple sentences into one
• Leaving out information from the original that isn’t relevant to your point
• Using synonyms where they don’t distort the meaning

The main point is to ensure you don’t just copy the structure of the original text, but instead reformulate the idea in your own words.

Paraphrasing without crediting the original author is a form of plagiarism , because you’re presenting someone else’s ideas as if they were your own.

However, paraphrasing is not plagiarism if you correctly cite the source . This means including an in-text citation and a full reference, formatted according to your required citation style .

As well as citing, make sure that any paraphrased text is completely rewritten in your own words.

Plagiarism means using someone else’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own. Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas in your own words.

So when does paraphrasing count as plagiarism?

• Paraphrasing is plagiarism if you don’t properly credit the original author.
• Paraphrasing is plagiarism if your text is too close to the original wording (even if you cite the source). If you directly copy a sentence or phrase, you should quote it instead.
• Paraphrasing  is not plagiarism if you put the author’s ideas completely in your own words and properly cite the source .

Try our services

To present information from other sources in academic writing , it’s best to paraphrase in most cases. This shows that you’ve understood the ideas you’re discussing and incorporates them into your text smoothly.

It’s appropriate to quote when:

• Changing the phrasing would distort the meaning of the original text
• You want to discuss the author’s language choices (e.g., in literary analysis )
• You’re presenting a precise definition
• You’re looking in depth at a specific claim

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Gahan, C. & Caulfield, J. (2023, June 01). How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved April 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/working-with-sources/how-to-paraphrase/

Is this article helpful?

Courtney Gahan

Other students also liked, how to write a summary | guide & examples, how to quote | citing quotes in apa, mla & chicago, how to avoid plagiarism | tips on citing sources, "i thought ai proofreading was useless but..".

I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”