Online Sources | MLA In-Text Citations

Confusion can arise when trying to figure out how to style in-text citations for web-based sources. Websites follow the same rules we’ve covered so far.

If you’re citing a webpage that has an author—such as a blog post or online magazine—you would simply follow the rules for a single author in-text citation and omit the page numbers.

Examples:
Jason Koebler at 404 Media described how human-generated content on social media is being “almost entirely drowned out by AI-generated content.”

The ease of creating AI-generated content makes it difficult for moderators to combat as “any time an algorithm is tweaked, AI spammers can find the weakness in that algorithm and exploit it” (Koebler).

Webpages that don’t have authors follow the rules for citing organizational authors.

Examples:
According to the National Institute of Health, developing “a better understanding of how cancer cells cooperate could provide new targets for treatments.”

We understand that cancer cells are in competition with each other, yet they may also cooperate in order to ensure survival. Scientists researched a pattern of cell growth known as the Allee that occurs when “the viability of a cell population drops below a certain cell density” (NIH).

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