Citing a website in MLA format

Factual Questions
1

Here’s one for all you academia nuts:

I run a website, nationalanthems.info to be exact, and I occassionally get emails asking how to cite the website in papers (as my website is basically a factual one, no surprise it would be cited in papers). (They sometimes ask for my name (or that of the “author and editor of the website”, which is basically me, but I do have information on my site contributed by other people which is worked into the page content, something like how Wikipedia works), if needed for the MLA cite, it is on the FAQ of the site. (Not being coy in protecting my name, as my alias here is very similar to my real name, it’s just that if you’re already on my site … )

2

Is the question, “What is the proper form for citation of a website?”

I don’t use M.L.A., but using Chicago, I would do it this way –

John Jay Jr., “How to Cite Web Content,” New York Times, Oct. 27, 2011; http://www.this.stuff (accessed on Oct. 27, 2011).

or

New York Times, “Guide to Online Citation,” NYTimes Online, Oct. 27, 2011; http://www.this.stuff (accessed on Oct. 27, 2011).

User dhkendall, Message board thread “Citing a website in MLA format,” Straight Dope Message Board (The Straight Dope, Creative Loafing Media Inc.), Post No. 1, Oct. 27, 2011; http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14399833&postcount=1 (accessed Oct. 27, 2011).

3

According to easybib, the MLA 7 citation for your website is:

(http://www.javascriptkit.com), JavaScriptKit.com. Nationalanthems.info. Web. 27 Oct. 2011. <http://www.nationalanthems.info/&gt;.

This looks a little weird because of the javascriptkit stuff.

4

Websites like EasyBib, Cite This For Me, and CitationMachine help create citations in a variety of styles – MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.

5

Related; Some online journals, especially, will apply a DOI identifier to each article-- a pretty new thing but useful for clarification.

6

Not weird. Plainly wrong. No way is that a correct citation of dhkendall’s site, or any part of it, in any imaginable citation style. If easybib.com gave you that, you somehow triggered a bug in the site.

7

Incidentally, I do not know about MLA style, but if you want to know about APA style for citing online material (and do not want to shell out for the massive manual), look here. In general, for web pages APA not only requires the regular citation and URL (and DOI if applicable), but also the date at which you accessed it.

8

Purdue’s OWL website is excellent for this information, and paper-writing in general.

9

It’s a bug, but it’s triggered by the code in dhkendall’s HTML. EasyBib misinterpreted the Google Search code as header file info.