MLA Citation

[Deathwishez]

Come on English majors and college students! I need your help here.

I've got a website that I am using as a secondary souce. I know how to put it in the works cited, but how do I cite a website with no author in the text?

[Ad Bot]

[Chriz]

unknown author? I don't know.

[General Nick]

Google Citation Machine, you enter the stuff it makes the formatting.

[dkamm65]

Just put unknown author and a link to the original site.

[Mr. Bill]

My school has 2 citation builders you can use and a help center.

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/lobo2/citationbuilder/index.php

http://www.calvin.edu/library/knightcite/index.php

http://www.mla.org/style_faq

Enjoy.

[Deathwishez]

I know how to put it in the works cited page. I need to know how to cite it in the actual text.

For instance, if the author's last name is Smith, then I would need to do this:

The internet is the best invention ever (Smith).


Because there is no author, I do not know what to use.

[Chriz]

I know how to put it in the works cited page. I need to know how to cite it in the actual text.

For instance, if the author's last name is Smith, then I would need to do this:

The internet is the best invention ever (Smith).


Because there is no author, I do not know what to use.

anonymous?

[Deathwishez]

I don't believe that would work. :/

Anonymous is normally used when the author is lost over time. This was created by a group of people (A very large group), but there is no organization or group name given, so I can't do that either.

[dkamm65]

I don't believe that would work. :/

Anonymous is normally used when the author is lost over time. This was created by a group of people (A very large group), but there is no organization or group name given, so I can't do that either.

Have the link to the original source at the bottom of the page and put a number after the quote that points to the link.

Example:

"Blockland is an online multiplayer building game.
It's like playing with legos on the internet." <sup>1


1</sup> http://www.blockland.us

[Regulith]

Leave it out. If you can't find information, just don't put it in. For in-text citation, just put the article name in parentheses. I'm doing a massive research paper for 11th grade English right now and our teacher is giving us loads of info on MLA.

If you need help making your works cited page:

www.easybib.com

GOOD stuff.

[adc90]

I'll show you how if you post the site, you might not want to use a web site if your teachers really serious about MLA. They changed their standards evidently so our teacher made us go out and buy a recent handbook so the citation sites might not be up to date yet.

[Wedge]

"Blockland is an online multiplayer building game.
It's like playing with legos on the internet." <sup>1


1</sup> http://www.blockland.us

That's a Chicago style citation not MLA.

MLA citations are a general format and you drop or add things depending on what's required and what's available. If there is no author you just skip the author section.

So for example, here is a general citation:

"<Page Title>" <Site Name>. <Publisher>, <Date Published>. Web. <Date Accessed>

So a citation from the front page of, say, something awful, would be:
"Death Panel" Something Awful. Mobutu Sese Seko, 29 Apr. 2010. Web. 2 May 2010.

We have the author and date published so it's pretty easy. Now suppose we want to cite the specifications of a mini-fridge on newegg. We don't have a publisher or date published. So we do this instead:

"Haier 1.7 cu. ft. Refrigerator/Freezer flush back" Newegg. n.p., n.d. Web. 2 May 2010.

n.p. stands for no publisher and n.d. stands for no date.

If you still have time, ask your teacher if this citation is okay because they might still want you to use the old format for some reason. I know teachers who were still assigning projects with the out of date guidelines because they were familiar with it. Otherwise just jump right in and do it this way.

In the old format you would just skip the author. So the above citation would be:

Haier 1.7 cu. ft. Refrigerator/Freezer flush back. <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16896741148>. Accessed 2 May 2010.

or however it was supposed to be done, I can't remember.

[dkamm65]

Shows you how much I know.

[Regulith]

Just FYI, MLA 7 says no URLs, unless your teacher says otherwise.