I am citing a website in the MLA format and I can't find the author and/or publisher of my source. What do I do?
Answer
In the MLA format, you use the following elements for citing a website on your Works Cited page:
Name of Individual/Corporation/Group/Organization that authored the work. "Title of Section." Title of Website, Publisher or Sponsoring Organization, Date of publication or last modified date, URL. Accessed access date.
Author: The author can be an individual or a group of individuals, such as an organization, corporation, or government agency*. The author is whoever is responsible for creating the information. Although less common, some works do not have an author and are considered anonymous. If this is the case, you skip the author element of the citation and continue with whatever information you do have.
Publisher: Whoever is making the website available to you.You can usually find the publisher next to the copyright information at the very bottom of the homepage on a website. If the publisher is essentially the same as the name of the website, you can skip the publisher element.
Organizations/Groups as Author: When the author of the information is a group, you list the group/organization's name in the author element.
For example:
Centre for Teaching Excellence. “Receiving and Giving Effective Feedback.” University of Waterloo, uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/assessing-student-work/grading-and-feedback/receiving-and-giving-effective-feedback. Accessed 1 Oct. 2021.
The author and the publisher of a website are sometimes the same. When this happens, simply skip the author element of the citation that would normally come first.
In this citation, the World Health Organization is the author, publisher, and the name of the website:
"Syria Crisis." World Health Organization, 2021, www.who.int/emergencies/situations/syria-crisis. Accessed 30 Sept. 2021.
In-Text Citations: Use whatever comes first from your Works Cited entry in your in-text citation, along with a page number (if applicable). This can be shortened to a noun phrase for long titles or organization names.
For example:
("Syria Crisis")
(Center for Teaching)
*Note: For information on how to cite congressional and legal documents, see "Documenting Legal Works in the MLA Style."
Sources:
MLA Style Center- Corporate Authors
Owl at Purdue, MLA Works Cited: Electronic Sources (Web Publications)