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APA Style 7th ed - Citation Guide for Nursing & Health Sciences

Notes on Websites

When citing a webpage, list as many of the following elements as are available:

  • author’s name (may be individual or group author)
  • publication date (or “n.d.” if no date can be found)
  • webpage/article title (usually in italics)
  • website name
  • URL

It is not unusual for a webpage to be missing some of these elements. In that case, omit the element from the citation. 

If the author and site name are the same, the site name can be omitted. 

Do not include a retrieval date for webpages unless you think the information may change over time – for example, a webpage about an ongoing event. 

Basic Format for Webpages, Websites, or Blogs

Reference List

Author, A. A. (YEAR, Month Day). Title of page. Website name. URL  (for a webpage)

Author, A. A. (YEAR, Month Day). Title of blog entry. Blog name. URL (for a blog)

In-Text Citation

(Last name, YEAR)

Webpage with one or more individuals as author

Basic Format

Lastname, F. M. (YEAR, Month Day). Title of webpage. Website name. URL

Reference List 

Rosen, A. (2023, January 20). Caregivers need care, too. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/caring-for-caregivers-of-people-with-alzheimers-disease 

In-Text

(Rosen, 2023) 

Webpage with group author

Basic Format

Group Author Name. (YEAR, Month Day). Title of webpage. Website Name. URL

Reference List

Alzheimer Society (n.d.). What is Alzheimer's disease? https://alzheimer.ca/en/about-dementia/what-alzheimers-disease

In-Text

(Alzheimer Society, n.d.) 

For a page from an organization’s website without individual authors, use the name of the organization as the author. If the author and site name are the same, omit the site name from the citation.

If the website has no date, use the abbreviation n.d. in place of the date. Do not use the copyright date appearing in the website footer unless it clearly refers to the content you are citing. 

Webpage on a news website (vs an online newspaper)

Basic Format

Author, A. A. (YEAR, Month Day). Title of webpage. Website Name. URL

Reference List

Crawley, M. (2024, October 7). Canadian doctors warned to be on the lookout for scurvy. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/scurvy-canadian-medical-association-journal-food-insecurity-1.7343724

In-Text
(Crawley, 2024)


The APA treats articles on news websites (such as CBC News, BBC News, HuffPost, etc.) as webpages (Publication manual, 2020, p. 351). In contrast, articles from online newspapers with corresponding print publications (such as the New York Times) are cited as articles in a periodical (Publication manual, 2020, p.320).

Wikipedia Entry

Basic Format

Title of Article. (YEAR, Month Day). In Wikipedia. URL

Reference List

Gopher. (2020, September 15). In Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gopher&oldid=977759404

In-Text

("Gopher," 2020)

Wikipedia articles often update frequently. For this reason, the date refers to the date that the cited version of the page was published.In this case, you should provide the URL to the archived version of the page, rather than the current version of the page on the site, since the latter can change over time. Access the archived version by clicking "View History," then clicking the date/timestamp of the version you'd like to cite.

For in-text citations without an author if the title is italicized in the reference, also italicize the title in the in-text citation. However, if the title of the work is not italicized in the reference, use double quotation marks around the title in the in-text citation. (Publication manual, 2020, p.264)

Website with information that may change over time

One of the major changes in APA 7th Edition is that you no longer have to include "Retrieved from" in your website citations. The one exception to this rule is if when the contents of a page are designed to change over time and an archived version is unavailable (unlike Wikipedia, for instance). In these cases, include a retrieval date in the reference.

Basic Format

Author or Website Name. (no date) Title of article or webpage. Retrieved Month Day, YEAR, from URL

Reference List

Global News. (n.d.) British Columbia Election 2024. Retrieved October 22, 2024, from https://globalnews.ca/news/10801085/bc-election-results-live-2024-vote/

In-Text

(Global News, n.d.) 

Blogs

Citations for blogs are formatted like newspaper or magazine articles rather than as websites. (Publication manual, 2020, p. 316)

Basic Format

Lastname, F. M. (YEAR, Month Day). Title of blog post. Title of Blog. URL

Reference List

Natelson, D. (2020, August 5). The energy of the Beirut explosion. Nanoscale Views. https://nanoscale.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-energy-of-beirut-explosion.html

In-Text

(Natelson, 2020)