how to footnote a website?

The title of a website that is analogous to a traditionally printed work but does not have (and never had) a printed counterpart can be treated like titles of other websites. For example, Wikipedia can be treated as a website, rather than as a conventional encyclopedia. This is a departure from previous editions of CMOS.

Titles of websites should follow headline-style capitalization and are usually set in roman without quotation marks. Sections of a website, such as a specific header, an individual page, a single blog entry, etc. should be written in roman with quotation marks. There are, however, some exceptions: titles of blogs are set in italics and titles of books, journals, television shows, movies, and other types of works should be treated the same whether cited as a print version or an online version. For example, when citing the website of the television news station CNN, the title maintains italics. Furthermore, in cases such as this, when a website does not have a distinctive title, it can be cited based on the entity responsible for the website, for instance, CNN online. If in doubt regarding whether to use roman or italics, roman is the safer choice.

The author of a piece of web content is often not immediately clear. If a name is given, use the name as you would in any other source. If the content is published under a screen name, internet handle, or pseudonym, and the author’s real name is not available, use this in place of the author’s name. You may also use the name of the publishing organization when the webpage has no listed author but is associated with some sort of corporation, association, or professional group. When a web page's author cannot be determined and there is no clear publishing organization, simply list the title first. Use the first letter of the first word in the title that is not an article (i.e., "a," "an," or "the") to determine the entry's alphabetical order in the bibliography. So, for instance, if the title of the page is "A Guide to Baking Apple Pies," "G" should be treated as the first letter for alphabetization purposes.

If the source you are citing has a clear publication date, use that as the source’s date, following standard guidelines. Otherwise, look for a revision date; many websites will make note of when they were last modified, edited, or revised. If you are using a date of revision rather than a date of publication, make that clear: “Last modified May 17, 2019”. You may use both at your discretion, in which case you should distinguish between the two: “Published April 26, 2019; last modified May 17, 2019”. If no date at all is available, use the date at which you accessed the source to get the data: “Accessed August 7, 2019”. If the site is modified again so that the data you retrieved originally is altered or removed, you should add a note to that effect in either the text or the citation, specifying “as of [date]” if possible.

Electronic books (e-books) are cited exactly as their print counterparts with the addition of a media marker at the end of the citation: Kindle, PDF, EPUB, etc. Books consulted online are also cited exactly as their print counterparts with the addition of a DOI (or URL) at the end of the citation. See also Books.

Note: Stable page numbers are not always available in electronic formats; therefore, you may include the number of chapter, section, or other easily recognizable locator instead.

Weston, Anthony. A Rulebook for Arguments, 4th ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2010. Kindle.

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Online periodicals are cited exactly as their print counterparts with the addition of a DOI or URL at the end of the citation. See also Periodicals. Also keep in mind that while access dates are not required for formally published electronic sources (e.g., journal articles), they can be useful for informally published electronic sources or may be required for by some disciplines for all informally and formally published electronic sources. Access dates should be located immediately prior to the DOI or URL.

For four or more authors, list the first author in the note followed by et al. For the corresponding bibliographic entry, list all authors (up to 10).

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Blog titles should be set in italics and blog entries should be set in quotation marks. Generally, blog entries are cited only as notes. If you frequently cite a blog, however, then you may choose to include it in your bibliography. Note: if the word “blog” is included in the title of the blog, there is no need to repeat it in parentheses after that title.

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Posts on social media will often be cited only as notes, though if you intend to discuss the content in depth, you should also put a citation in the bibliography. Since it is easy – and common – for social media posts to vanish with little notice, it is advisable to take a screenshot or similar record of anything you intend to cite, so that future edits or deletions will not undermine your work. Please note that all of this applies only to public content on social media. Private content, such as a direct message or a post in a restricted-membership group should be cited as a personal communication.

Social media posts do not typically have titles, so if a title is not provided, simply use the text of the post, retaining all original capitalization, spelling, etc., set in roman with quotation marks. Do not include more than 160 characters in this section of the citation; if the post is longer than that, cut it off (with an ellipsis) at a sensible point before the 160-character mark is reached. Citation of a social media post should fit the following format:

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Ideally, a post should be cited by the author’s legal name and screen name / internet handle, but if there is no screen name available (e.g. on a Facebook post) or no legal name available (e.g. on a Twitter post), use whichever you do have. Also note that you needn’t include the format/medium if the post is only text, and you should only include the time stamp if it is relevant to your point or necessary to distinguish between multiple citations on the same day. Also, if you have quoted the full post in your main text, you can leave that out of your note citation.

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Citations for internet forums or mailing lists are very similar to social media citations, with a few differences. Rather than the text of the post, use the thread title or subject heading as your citation title; also, the name of the list or forum should be added in addition to the host site or service.

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At times, it may be necessary to cite a comment someone has made on a blog entry, online article, social media post, etc. Generally, the comment will only be cited as a note, not in the bibliography, unless there is some significant reason you feel it should be considered a source on its own, separate from the work to which it was responding. Citation of a comment need only contain the name of the commenter (and/or screen name, as above), the date the comment was made (time stamp optional), and a reference back to the work to which it is responding.

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Online multimedia should be cited using the general format below. Note that whether the title of the work should be set in italics or in roman with quotation marks will vary from one medium to another, as noted near the beginning of this page. For additional guidelines on the citation of videos, songs, and multimedia in general, see Audiovisual Recordings and Other Multimedia.

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When citing a podcast, set the podcast title in italics, and the episode title (and number, if it is included in the title of the episode) in roman with quotation marks. The date of publication should be included after the episode title rather than before the medium, as shown below.

Note: Inclusion of the word “podcast” follows the same guidelines as inclusion of the word “blog” above. “Podcast, MP3 audio” is used below, then, as an example placeholder and would not necessarily be required for this specific example.

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If you are citing a video from an online service, such as YouTube, you can follow the general multimedia guidelines, but you must include the URL. The medium for any sort of streaming video where the file type is not necessarily clear or relevant can be cited simply as “video”.

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Do you need to cite a website or other online material in Chicago or Turabian style? Look no further than this page! In this guide, you’ll find information on how to cite websites (website article), blogs, social media, and more according to Chicago notes-bibliography style (17th ed.).

Here you’ll find examples for the following types of citations:

With general website content, you are likely to encounter missing information. For example, there may be no author listed. In that case, use the title of the page as the first element in your footnotes and use the name of the site owner or sponsor as the author in the bibliography. This guide on citing a website with no author has templates and examples for creating this type of citation in Chicago style.

Quite often you will not find a date. If this happens, you will use an access date. Some websites will not have a specific title and may be identified with just the owner or sponsor name (CMOS 8.191). For author-date style, if there is only an access date possible, include “n.d.” in place of the year for in-text citation.

Online news or magazine articles are usually cited exactly as articles in print newspapers or magazines, except that the URL is added to the end of the citation. This formatting is slightly different from citations for journal articles in Chicago, though, so be sure to double check which citation style is right for your source.

Citing a blog post in Chicago is very similar to citing an online newspaper or magazine article. You italicize the title of the blog and follow the title with “blog” in parentheses. If the blog is part of a larger publication, include the name of that publication after the title of the blog.

To cite a comment on a blog post, you do this in text. If you cite a comment, you must cite the article on which the comment is posted in the reference list or bibliography according to the above guidelines. In the footnote, list the commenter’s name, the date the comment was posted, and then a shortened form of the citation for the primary blog post.

For example, the note for a comment on the above blog post would be formatted as follows:

WayneF1, January 17, 2014, comment on Limer, “Heck Yes! The First Free Wireless Plan is Finally Here.”

A URL can be included in the footnote citation for a blog comment, but it is not always necessary. See CMOS 14.208 or 15.51 for more guidelines on citing comments.

Social media is generally only cited in the text, but it can also have a formal citation. If you don’t have a title, use up to the first 160 characters of the post in quotation marks. If there is no author, use the user name.

Online forums and mailing lists can be cited in the same way as social media. Include the name of the author, the title of the thread or subject of the email, the title of the list or forum, the title of the host site, the date it was posted, and the URL. For further guidance and examples, see CMOS 14.210 and Turabian 17.5.4 and 19.5.4.

The CMOS recommends that any type of personal communication be cited in text and notes, and indicates that it is rare to cite these in a bibliography (CMOS 14.214 and 15.53). Examples of personal, electronic communication include:

Citing personal interviews in Chicago would also fall under this umbrella.

If an author is not clear, you can use the site owner or publisher in the author field instead. However, if no author, owner, or publisher can be readily identified, your source may be unreliable and you might want to reconsider using it and finding something more authoritative.

Titles for online material can be tricky, as there may not always be a clear title. If you can’t find a title, you can identify it by the website owner or sponsor. Titles of websites are generally set in roman without quotation marks and capitalized in title case. In a small departure from the 16th edition, the CMOS 17th edition specifies that if the website has a print counterpart (such as the websites for newspapers and other publications), then it should be in italics. If it does not, then it should be treated normally. See the examples below:

The website of the Washington Post = Washington Post

Wikipedia’s entry on the American Revolution = Wikipedia

Titles of sections of web pages or pages within a larger website should be placed in quotation marks (CMOS 8.191).

Dates are very important in online material because this type of material changes constantly. You must include a date of publication if you can find one. If there is a revision or modification date in place of the publication date, use that. Revision dates may also be helpful when citing material that is regularly updated like Wikipedia (CMOS 14.13).

While Chicago style does not require the use of an access date in most cases, if you cannot find a publication date or revision date, you should include an access date. If you are writing a scientific or medical research piece, access dates might be required in addition to publication or revision dates, so you might want to check with your instructor (CMOS 14.12).

When recording the URL, if a permalink or shorter link is available, use it instead. Otherwise, use the full URL regardless of length and include the “https://” when writing the URL (CMOS 14.9; Turabian 15.4.1.3).

If a URL links to a database that requires a subscription, it is better to name the database (e.g., ProQuest) because not everyone may have access (CMOS 14.9).

Chicago style does not always require website material to be cited in a bibliography. Sometimes it is enough to describe the content in the text (like when citing a YouTube video in Chicago or a blog post).

For example, writing “EasyBib’s latest blog post, posted on January 21, 2020, gave excellent tips on how to write a research paper,” would likely give the reader enough information to find and identify the blog post. You can include a formal citation if needed, and our examples above will help you out.

Keep in mind, however, that this only applies to general web content, social media, and personal communications like email or Facebook messages. For most other online material, you should always include a formal citation. When in doubt, it is always better to provide a formal citation.

Citing web pages usually requires the following information:

Because online material can disappear any moment, make sure that you record all the information about the website when you use it. You might even want to consider taking a screenshot if you think you might need more information later.

The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.7208/cmos17.

Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 9th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018.

Written by Janice Hansen. Janice has a doctorate in literature and a master’s degree in library science. She spends a lot of time with rare books and citations.

If the author is unknown, start with the title of the page instead. If the publication date is unknown, or if the content is likely to change over time, add an access date at the end instead.

Websites don’t usually have page numbers, so the in-text citation is just the author name in parentheses. If you already named the author in your sentence, you don’t need to add a parenthetical citation.

The format differs for other types of online content, such as YouTube videos, TED Talks, and podcasts.

The format for citing an article from an online newspaper, magazine, or blog is the same as a general web page citation. If the article is a PDF of a print article, the format differs slightly.

Write the article title in title case (all major words capitalized). Use the most recent publication date on the page, including the day, month, and year if available.

Note, however, that a different format is used when citing online articles from academic journals.

Learn how to cite journal articles in MLA

If no author is credited, leave out this element, and start with the title of the page or article instead.

Use a shortened version of the title in your in-text citation. The shortened title must match the first words of your Works Cited entry.

If no publication date is available, leave out this element, and include the date on which you accessed the page at the end.

Note that a specific format exists for citing online dictionary entries.

If you cite a whole website, there is usually no named author, so the Works Cited entry begins with the name of the website in italics.

If the website has a publication or copyright date (usually found in the footer), include this; if not, add the date when you accessed the website at the end of the citation.

Most of the time, you should cite the specific page or article where you found the information. However, you might have to cite the entire website if you are giving a general overview of its content, referring only to the homepage, or quoting text that appears on many different pages across the site (such as a company’s slogan).

If you cite multiple pages or articles from the same website, you should include a separate Works Cited entry for each one.

If the website is published by an organization with a different name than the website itself, you should include this in the citation too. The website’s publisher is usually found somewhere in the footer, often next to a copyright symbol.

If the publisher is the same as the name of the website, you leave it out of the citation to avoid repetition.

With the internet at our fingertips 24 hours a day, who needs books any more? Not students or researchers, that’s for sure! Actually… that’s not quite true. Print sources are still vital when writing an essay. But you can also cite a website if you find useful information online.

Most referencing styles even have specific rules for doing this, including the Chicago referencing footnote system. As such, here’s our guide to citing websites Chicago style.

The first time you cite a website, you should give full source information in the footnote:

n. Author Name(s), ‘Title of Page’, Publishing Organisation or Name of Website, publication date, URL.

If all of this information is available for the source, your footnote should look something like this:

1. Nick Stone, ‘Hidden history: Myths – Tombland, Norwich and the Plague’, Invisible Works, last modified 5 June 2015, http://www.invisibleworks.co.uk/myths-tombland-and-the-plague/.

We use the term ‘last modified’ here because web pages are often updated, but often you will just need to give the date the page was first published. If citing the same source more than once, you can then use a shortened format for subsequent footnotes.

Not every website will have a named author or date of publication. When this happens, you will need to adapt your footnotes accordingly.

If the author is not named, you can give the page title in first position. When no date of publication is given, include the date you accessed the site instead:

2. ‘The Murderers Pub History’, The Murderers & The Gardeners Arms, accessed 31 July 2017, http://www.themurderers.co.uk/norwich-pub-history.html.

You need to include the ‘accessed’ date in case the content on the page changes after you access it.

The bibliography entry for a website in Chicago referencing is similar to the first footnote. The main differences are the punctuation and the fact the author’s names are given surname first:

Author Surname, First Name. ‘Title of Page’. Publishing Organisation or Name of Website. Last modified/access date. URL.

One important difference here is that, when a page has no named author, you should give the publishing organisation or website name first. You can then use this instead of a surname when listing sources alphabetically. For example, the sites above would be listed as follows:

The Murderers & The Gardeners Arms. ‘The Murderers Pub History’ Accessed 31 July 2017. http://www.themurderers.co.uk/norwich-pub-history.html.

Chicago Reference Generator

To cite a website in Chicago style, follow the formats shown below for your footnotes and bibliography entries. Pay attention to punctuation (e.g., commas, quotation marks, parentheses) in your citations.

There are different formats for online newspaper articles or blog posts, images, films viewed online, and social media posts. Always make sure your sources are credible.

Web sources should generally be cited with their specific publication date (month, day, and year).

Some web sources list a revision date instead of (or in addition to) the original publication date. When a date of last revision or update is listed, use this instead, preceded by the words “Last modified.”

When both are available and you think it’s important for the reader to know, you can include both the original publication date and the revision date.

Web content often doesn’t list an individual author.

In a full note citation for a page with no author, begin with the name of the page. In short notes and in the bibliography entry, begin with the name of the organization that published the source. If the organization’s name is the same as the website name, don’t repeat it later in the citation.

Where neither a publication date nor a revision date is available, include the date when you accessed the page instead. Only use this when there are no other options.

To cite an article from an online version of a print newspaper or magazine, you include the exact same information as you would for the print version, but with the addition of a URL. Blog posts are cited in a similar format.

To cite an online newspaper or magazine article, put the publication title in italics, and add a URL at the end:

Blogs are cited in the same format as newspapers, with the word “blog” added in parentheses (unless the blog name already contains the word “blog”).

If the blog is part of a larger publication, the title of the publication appears, also italicized.

Since most social media posts are untitled, use the beginning of the post (up to 160 characters) in place of the title. If the post is less than 160 characters long, you can quote the whole thing.

If the content was posted under a username or screen name, include it in parentheses after the real name of the poster. If a user’s real name is unknown, the username appears as the author.

Private digital content—emails, text messages, direct messages, but also content in private Facebook groups or other webpages not accessible to everyone – should be cited as personal communications.

Citations of personal communications do not follow a standard format; rather, you should just describe where the source you’re citing comes from:

In Chicago author-date style, websites are cited using in-text citations corresponding to entries in your reference list. A reference list entry differs from a bibliography entry only in the placement of the year.

Examples of author-date website citations and references are shown in the tabs below.

Format for footnotes for a document from the web: A. Author, 'Title of Document', Name of Website in Italics, Place of Publication, Name of Publisher, year, page number, http://url, (accessed day month year).