How to cite a Web site in APA style

How to cite from a Web site in APA style.

Say you are researching online for a sociology paper about U.S. beverage consumption, and you find a government report with a specific section about where people buy and consume sugar drinks. How do you cite that one section of the report in your references list?

To cite a section from an online report in APA style, you’ll need to gather seven elements: the author names; the publication date; the section title; the report title; an identified report number if one is given; the publisher of the report; and the URL.

Start with the authors of the report. List last names first, and only use initials for first and middle names. Don’t include credentials like PhD or MD in your citation, even if they’re listed in the report.

If the report has 2 or more authors (like this one), use an ampersand before the last author’s name.You can list up to 7 authors in an APA citation. If a report has 8 or more authors, list only the first 6 authors followed by three ellipsis dots and the last author’s name. Here, there are only 4 authors, so you can list them all.

Next, list the publication date of the report. If there is an update date, use that instead. Always use the date that accurately reflects the version of the report you want to cite. If a report doesn’t list a publication or update date, list N-D in parentheses instead. Next, list the full title of the section you want to cite. Only capitalize the first letter of the title.

Find and add the unique title of the full report. Note that in the citation, you should precede the report title with the word “In,” only the first letter of the title should be capitalized, and the full title should be in italic font.

List the report number, if there is one. Include any identifying information about what that number means. If you’re not sure, ask yourself, “What do all of the reports in this series have in common?” Include that identification just before the report number. Here, the report is an “NCHS Data Brief.” List the publisher of the report, with one exception: if the report doesn’t name an author, list the publisher as the author and don’t list it again in your citation.

Last, list the URL of the section you’re citing. Once you’ve found all the elements for your citation, double-check your punctuation.

When you add this citation to your references list, be sure to indent each line except for the very first one. This is called a hanging indent.

Author names should be listed last name followed by first and (if available) middle initials. There should be a comma following each last name and periods after each initial. There should be a space between the initials. If there are two or more authors, place an ampersand before the last listed author.

The publication date should be listed year, comma, month. This should be in parentheses, with a period outside the second parenthesis. Only the first words in the section title and report title should be capitalized. In both titles, all other words should be lowercase. The report title should be italicized. The word “In” should precede the report title, but should not be italicized. The report identifier and number should be within parentheses, with a period outside the second parenthesis. The words “Retrieved from” should precede the publisher, and the publisher should be followed by a colon. The URL should not have any special formatting: no underlining or italics. It should not be followed by a period.

And that’s how you cite from a Web site in APA style.