Educational Research
APA Citation for Websites

Before citing information from the internet, consider the following caution. Anybody can post any information they want on the internet. Because websites are not peer reviewed, the information on a website may or may not be accurate. Therefore, be cautious before citing information from the internet. In addition, wikipedia is NOT an academic website, so do not use wikipedia as a reference for your academic work.

Citing information from the internet requires the following information: author name, copyright year of the website, and name of the article. Because information on the internet is continually changing and being updated, you need to record the date that you accessed the information on the internet. Finally, the reference also needs to include the url, or the internet address. Internet addresses are like phone numbers. If you have just one number incorrect in a phone number, then you will dial a wrong number. Likewise, if just one character is incorrect in the url, then you will get a wrong website or an error message. Because it is crucial that the url is correct, it is best to copy and paste the url from the website into your manuscript. Below is a picture of where to find the internet url.

The website url is circled in red. I highlighted the url with the cursor, making the url turn blue in the background. Inside the green circle, you can see that I first clicked "Edit," then "Copy." Once that has been done, you can go into your manuscript and click "Edit," then "Paste." The url will appear exactly as it is in the address bar.

The reference for a website follows the typical first elements of a reference: Author. (Date). Title of work in italics. After the website name, write the word Retrieved and then write the date that you accessed the website, followed by a comma, the word from and then the url. For websites only, do NOT put a full-stop at the end of the reference. This is to avoid confusion about the website address.

Below is another page on this website.

The author of this website is Jessica Horst. The website was copyrighted in 2007. The title of the website is Word Laboratory. I retrieved this website on 25 March 2010. The url for the website is: http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/research/wordlab/index.html The complete reference is listed below.

Horst, J. (2007). Word Laboratory. Retrieved March 25, 2010 from http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/research/wordlab/index.html


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