APA 6th Referencing: Website Reference (Webpages, Blogs, Social Media, etc.)

Website Reference: General Reference Format

When referencing information from a website, you need to determine the type of information and format. Any information from a website should also be carefully evaluated to ensure that the information is from a credible source. You should only reference what you can actually see on the page in question. If the webpage is part of a section on a website then identify the website/organisation and the relevant section.

Note that a webpage is a specific part of a website. A website is a collection of webpages.

If a webpage does not have a publication date listed, use the abbreviation n.d. in place of the date in your citation and reference list. e.g. Diabetes Australia. (n.d.). The copyright date listed on a page is not necessarily the date the content was published.

General Reference Format:

Author. (Date). Title of document [Format (if required)]. Retrieved from http://xxxx

• Documents that stand alone, such as reports and other online publications or documents. A description of format is only provided if needed to assist in identifying the type of information, such as fact sheet or brochure, if not part of the title. Often the author is a corporate author (e.g. organization or government department), rather than personal author. Title is in italics.
   
• Information sources such as blog posts, blog comments, online forums, and information on a webpage that is not a stand-alone document or publication. A description of format may be required. Title is not italicised. For most content, only the year is provided; provide a more specific date (e.g. 2019, July 5) for content that is published more frequently, such as blog posts. Provide a retrieval date for references if the content on the page is likely to be changed or updated.

Websites: Sample References

Web Sources: Things to Remember

What to reference: You should only reference what you can actually see on the page in question. If the webpage is part of a section in a website, and you would like to use other parts of the site, then identify the website/organisation and the relevant sections.

Italics: Italicise titles of reports and other documents that stand alone as a publication. Do not italicise the titles of blog posts, online forum messages, blog comments, status updates, and so forth, when they make up a portion of a larger body of work.

Webpage with no author: If the author is not identified, start the reference with the document title. Cite in-text the first few words of the reference list entry (in this case, the title) and the year.

Webpage with no date: If no year is available, use ‘n.d.’ (meaning “no date”), in both the in-text citation and the end-text reference.

Entire website: If citing an entire website, rather than a particular document on the website, give the address in-text only. This is usually only done if you are using the site as an illustration, or mentioning the whole website in the text. No reference list entry is required. If you are citing a specific idea on a site, you should reference the page on which the idea appears, not the site as a whole.

URL: There is no full stop after the URL.

Retrieval date: Include the retrieval date if the content on the page cited is likely to be changed or updated.

Referencing Web Documents:

Where you have downloaded or otherwise accessed a separate document (PDF, Word, etc.) from a website, reference the document in the format that most suits the type of document, e.g. report or brochure, then provide the retrieval statement (i.e. the URL for the document).

This meets the general format of all APA references, providing details of who produced the work, when the work was produced, what specific work we are referring to, and where this work came from.

Website Reference

Electronic Sources & Locator Information

Blog Post Reference

Social Media Reference