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MLA Style Guide: Web Resources

This guide is designed to help students learn about MLA style and cite sources for their research.

Quick Tips

If there is no individually named author for the text, you may start the reference with a corporate author, usually the organization or company responsible for the site's content.

If no corporate author is available, you may begin the reference with the title.

If the title of the web site is not obvious, you may use a description of the work to replace this element, e.g. Home page. Do not italicize the description.

If there is no date provided and no indication of when the site was last updated, you may provide the date you accessed the web site..

It is not necessary to include the web site's URL as this is considered to be an unstable element. If you think the reader of your paper may have difficulty locating the site on the Internet, you may include the URL, e.g. http://www.printmag.com/Article/

You should also include the publisher (or the organization responsible for the web site's content).  If this cannot be determined, use N.p. (for "no publisher").

Web Resources

Information required for an Internet or web site referencce includes:

  • Author(s) or other contributors
  • Title of web site and/or web page
  • Publisher or sponsor of the web site
  • Date of publication (day, month, year) if available
  • Universal Resource Locator (URL) if desired

See also the style guide for references to books and articles from electronic databases.

Examples of References:

Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario. AccessAbility: A Practical Handbook on Accessible Graphic Design. RGD Ontario, 2010,
www.rgd.ca/database/files/library/RGD_.AccessAbility_Handbook.pdf.

"Nestle-logo." JPEG image. More about Advertising: The Alternative Voice of Advertising, Marketing and Media, posted by Stephen Foster, 10 Aug. 2010, www.moreaboutadvertising.com/2010/08/food-companies-nestle-28bn-spend-alcon-eyecare-novartis-loreal-kraft/nestle-logo/.

Stanchfield, Walt. "28 Principles of Animation." Animation Arena, 2019, www.animationarena.com/principles-of-animation.html. Accessed 22 Oct. 2019.

Swanson. Fritz. "Ink on Plastic." Printmag.com. Print Magazine, Feb. 2012.

Warburton, Matthew. "Where Would We Be Today Without the Vision of Steve Jobs?" gdc blog, Society of Graphic Designers of Canada, 6 Oct. 2011.

Examples of In-Text Citations:

Note: For a web site that has no numbered paragraphs or page numbers, it is sufficient to provide the author's name.  If the document is also available in print and is reproduced online in PDF format, provide the page number for the citation.

According to the Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario (RGD Ontario), the reader's ability to process text depends on various spatial considerations such as the intervals between letterforms and the density of paragraphs on a page (7).

Knowing the principles of animation enables the artist to "animate his scene intellectually, logically and artistically as well as emotionally" (Stanchfield).

As Fritz Swanson points out in his article on political branding, bright colours do not appeal to Republicans. He discovered that Joseph Claflin, creative director of Garrison Everest, recommends a corporate palette of dark blues and reds for conservative clients - "Nothing green, nothing pink."

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