Referencing Websites

Referencing is the bane of many students' existence, but it is a necessary skill in the academic sphere.
Despite how it feels referencing books and journal articles is relatively straight forward- the author, date, and title are usually clear.

However, when it comes to online resources it can get tricky to find the information you need to fill in your reference.

How to identify the author/date

• Check the top and bottom of the article/page
• Look for an 'Updated' note (AMA), do not use this for APA
• Check the About/Contact information
• Check the Copyright information ( note this may be the owner organisation, not necessarily the author)
• Check the URL
• A lot of websites will have a Copyright date, this is not necessarily the publication date. 

There is no author! The title takes the place of the author (see examples below).
There is no date! (n.d.)

Also Check the Title
Most web pages will have 2 titles the name of the overall site, and the name of the individual page.

For example the image to right shows a page from State Government of Victoria's (author) Better Health Channel (Website name), with the individual web page title being Environmental health.

Format (How it should look)

APA

Web Page

Author, A.A. (year). Title of web page. Retrieved from URL

Animals Australia. (2013). Think like a cat. Retrieved from http://www.electrochook/sneaky1.html

Web document

Author, A.A. (year). Title of document. Retrieved from URL

Animals Australia. (n.d.). Think like a cat. Retrieved from http://www.electrochook/sneaky1.pdf

No author 

Web page

Title of web page. (year). Retrieved from URL

Think like a cat. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.electrochook/sneaky1.html

Web Document

Title of document. (year). Retrieved from URL

The cat who pretended he didn't eat all the cream. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.electrochook/sneaky1.pdf

AMA

1. Author(s) [or organisation responsible for the site]. Title of page or object. Name of website. URL. Published [or Updated] date [at least the year, if available]. Accessed date. 
2. State Government of Victoria. Anaphylaxis. Better Health Channel. http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Anaphylaxis. Updated July 16, 2013. Accessed January 8, 2014.

Other Styles

If you're really not sure how to reference something you find online get in touch with the Library; In person, via the InfoHelp contact form or Chat service, or by calling.

It helps if you include a link to the source you want to reference.