Each style asks for roughly the same five details. What changes is the order, the punctuation, how titles are capitalized and which part is in italics. Collect these from the page before you start:
- Author: a person, several people, or an organization. Check the byline, the bottom of the page and the About page.
- Date: when the page was published or last updated. Use the most specific date shown. A copyright year in the footer covers the whole site, not the page, so don't use it.
- Title of the page: usually the main heading.
- Name of the website: the publication or organization the page belongs to.
- URL: copied from the address bar.
All the examples below cite the same made-up page: an article by Jane Smith titled "Why Urban Trees Matter," published March 4, 2025 on a site called Example City Parks at https://www.example.org/urban-trees.
APA 7th edition
Format: Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL
Example: Smith, J. (2025, March 4). Why urban trees matter. Example City Parks. https://www.example.org/urban-trees
In-text: (Smith, 2025) or Smith (2025).
- Use initials for first names, and sentence case for the title: capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns.
- Italicize the page title, not the site name.
- If the author is an organization and it's the same as the site name, leave the site name out: Example City Parks. (2025, March 4). Why urban trees matter. https://…
- Don't write "Retrieved from" unless you also give a retrieval date, which APA uses only for content designed to change over time.
The rules are set out on the APA Style webpage reference page.
MLA 9th edition
Format: Last Name, First Name. "Title of Page." Name of Website, Day Month Year, URL.
Example: Smith, Jane. "Why Urban Trees Matter." Example City Parks, 4 Mar. 2025, www.example.org/urban-trees.
In-text: (Smith). Web pages rarely have page numbers, so the author's name alone is enough.
- Give the author's full name, last name first. Use title case for the page title and put it in quotation marks.
- The website is the "container," so it's italicized.
- Abbreviate months longer than four letters (Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., and so on).
- MLA recommends leaving out https://. If the page has no date, add an access date at the end: Accessed 15 Oct. 2026.
See the MLA Style Center for the full guidance.
Chicago 18th edition
Chicago has two systems. Notes and bibliography is common in history and the humanities; author-date is used in the sciences and social sciences. Both are in the Chicago Manual of Style.
Notes and bibliography
Note: 1. Jane Smith, "Why Urban Trees Matter," Example City Parks, March 4, 2025, https://www.example.org/urban-trees.
Short note: 2. Smith, "Urban Trees."
Bibliography: Smith, Jane. "Why Urban Trees Matter." Example City Parks, March 4, 2025. https://www.example.org/urban-trees.
Author-date
Reference: Smith, Jane. 2025. "Why Urban Trees Matter." Example City Parks, March 4. https://www.example.org/urban-trees.
In-text: (Smith 2025). Note there's no comma between the name and the year, unlike APA.
Chicago asks for an access date only when the page shows no publication or revision date: accessed October 15, 2026.
Side by side
| APA 7 | MLA 9 | Chicago 18 (bibliography) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author name | Smith, J. | Smith, Jane. | Smith, Jane. |
| Date position | After the author | After the website | After the website |
| Page title | Italic, sentence case | Quoted, title case | Quoted, title case |
| Website name | Plain | Italic | Usually plain |
| URL | Full, with https:// | Usually without https:// | Full, with https:// |
| In-text | (Smith, 2025) | (Smith) | Footnote |
When details are missing
No author
Don't write "Anonymous" unless the page itself does. First check whether an organization is responsible for the content; if so, it's the author. If there really is no author:
- APA: move the title to the author position. Why urban trees matter. (2025, March 4). Example City Parks. https://… In-text: (Why Urban Trees Matter, 2025).
- MLA: start with the title. In-text, use a shortened title: ("Why Urban Trees").
- Chicago: start the bibliography entry with the title, or with the organization if one is responsible.
No date
- APA: write (n.d.) in place of the date, and (Smith, n.d.) in the text.
- MLA: leave the date out and add an access date at the end.
- Chicago: add an access date, or use "n.d." in author-date references.
Updated pages
If a page shows both a published date and an "updated" date, use the updated date, as long as the update applies to the content you used.
Faster: let a generator do the formatting
The punctuation is the easy part to get wrong. The Citation Generator takes the details once and formats the reference in APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago 18 using the official Citation Style Language style files. It handles initials, sentence case and missing dates, and you can export the list to Word, BibTeX or RIS. Always compare the result with the page you're citing, since a generator can only format what you give it.
Once your references are in place, a quick pass with the Word Counter tells you whether you're within the word limit. Many instructors don't count the reference list, so check before you trim. The Readability Checker helps find sentences that run too long. More tools for drafting are in our writing tools.