When the Librarians send research materials to students, they try to include all of the details you will need to write your citations. But sometimes not all of the information you need will reach you. In those cases, you’ll still need to write a citation, but you’ll be missing one or more of the required elements and your citation will be incomplete. The citation guidelines give some rules about what to write in your citation if you are missing the information. Note that we are providing guidelines for both MLA and APA, since there are many similarities. When there are differences, follow the guidelines for MLA if you are using MLA format in your class; follow the guidelines for APA if you are using APA format in your class.
What’s missing: Author
What to do: Double check that the author is actually missing. Getting a source without an author listed is unusual. It’s likely that if you do not see any individuals named as the author, then the author is actually the organization that is responsible for the source. For example, a page from the National Park Service website may not have any specific author listed on the page, but you should name National Park Service as the author in your citation, because that organization wrote the page.
If there actually is no author listed on the print out of the source you got, then you will just leave it out. In your in-text citation you will put the title of the page, article or chapter. Your full citation will start with the title. And you’ll put it in your list where it belongs alphabetically according to the first word of the title.
What not to do: If the author of the source isn’t listed on the copy that you have, do not use “Anonymous” instead. You can only use Anonymous as the author if the source you are citing is actually signed Anonymous.
What’s special about APA: Note that usually the date of publication comes right after the author’s name in APA, but if there is no author, then the date will come after the title, like this:
Title. (Date). Source.
Form for MLA:
“Title of Web Page.” Title of Website, date published in day month year format, URL without the https://.
Example for MLA:
“The Reading Brain: Differences between Digital and Print.” So Many Books, 25 Apr. 2013, www.somanybooksblog.com/2013/04/25/the-reading-brain-differences-between-digital-and-print/.
Form for APA:
Title of the page or article. (Year, Month Day). Title of the Site or Journal. URL
Example for APA:
New apple varieties. (1997, June). Food Magazine. https://foodmag.com/article/1997/22-new
What’s missing: Publication date
What to do in MLA: Sometimes websites that the librarians send do not have a publication date. When there is no date, skip that information in your citation. MLA says to add the date you accessed the source at the end of the full citation in your Works Cited list. The access date is given by putting the word “Accessed” followed by the date you viewed or accessed the work (format = Day Month (shortened) Year). If there is a date in the footer of the print-out, you can use that as your Accessed date. Or you can use the date when you received the print-out, if there is no date listed on it. For example, if a student received on March 12, 2022, a print-out of a website that had no publication date and no accessed date on it, they would have written Accessed 12 Mar. 2022 at the end of the citation where the accessed date is supposed to go in MLA citations.
What to do in APA: If you are using APA format and a source has no date, use n.d. everywhere in the reference and in-text citation where you would have normally put the date. To people who read APA citations, n.d. means no date and they will understand that no publication date was provided on the source you are citing. You could provide the date you got the source. APA uses the word Retrieved. See the form and example below to see where you would include the Retrieved date.
Form for MLA:
Author. “Title of Page.” Title of Website, URL without the https://. Accessed Day Month Year.
Example for MLA:
Farmer’s Association. “Farming.” Mayhill, Inc., www.mayhill.com/products/farmer/index.jsp. Accessed 7 Jun. 2022.
Form for APA:
Author. (n.d.). Title of page. Site name. URL
Example for APA:
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. (n.d.). Justice served: Case closed for over 40 dogfighting victims. https://www.aspca.org/news/justice-served-case-closed-over-40-dogfighting-victims
What’s missing: All the page numbers
What to do in MLA: Most websites and some electronic articles will not have page numbers, so when you cite them you will not include any page numbers in your citations. When you are citing a source that has no page numbers, just leave the page numbers out of the citation. For your in-text citation, just use the author’s name or the title of the work if there is no author given. Your reader will know that the source you are citing doesn’t have page numbers if they just see the author’s name in your in-text citation). For your Works Cited list, just leave out the page number information when you get to that part.
What to do in APA: APA says to count the paragraphs and include the paragraph number in your in-text citation if there are no page numbers. This is required when you are directly quoting from a source, but not when you are paraphrasing it by explaining it in your own words. Here is an example from the APA website:
People planning for retirement need more than just money—they also “need to stockpile their emotional reserves” to ensure adequate support from family and friends (Chamberlin, 2014, para. 1).
The in-text citation shows the reader that the quote came from a source that does not have page numbers and the quote can be found in the first paragraph on the page.
The full citation for this source would not list the paragraphs or the pages. It would just skip the part of the citation where the page range would normally be listed.
What not to do: When you get a copy of something that does not have page numbers because it was published only online (like a website), do not put the page numbers of your print-out into your citation. For example, if you are quoting something from a website that shows up on the second page of your print-out, do not put p. 2 in the in-text citation. And if you are writing a reference to a website that is printed out on 10 pages, do not put pp. 1-10 in your citation. Only provide page numbers if the original source had page numbers, like a print out of a book chapter or journal article that originally was published physically.
No examples for this scenario.
What’s missing: Some of the page numbers
What to do in MLA and APA: If you get a copy of a source that has some of the page numbers cut off, but you can see most of the page numbers, then it’s okay to determine what the page number is of a quote you’re using by looking at the pages before and after it. Stay alert, though, because some sources, mostly magazines and newspapers, will sometimes start an article with a few continuous pages and finish it after skipping a lot of pages in order to save space. In those cases, you will not be able to guess the page numbers. So your in-text citations and full citation just won’t include page numbers.
No examples for this scenario.
What’s missing: The database name
What to do in MLA: MLA citation rules say to include the database name in your citation. This rule applies to anything that the librarian sends you that is from the library. Most sources that come out of a library database will have the database name listed on the first page or the last page. Examples of database names are JSTOR, Academic Search Complete, ProQuest Central, etc. If your print out does not include a database name, then you can leave it out.
What to do in APA: According to APA rules, you don’t need to include the database name for articles and book chapters that the library sends you from the databases. That’s because your reader is expected to have access to different databases than the ones you have, so they should be able to find the resource in their own library, if it’s available to them. In APA, most citations are the same whether it’s for a print version or an electronic version of the source, so plan to leave the database name out of your citation even if you know what it is.
No examples for this scenario.
What’s missing: The DOI or web address
The DOI is a required part of the citation if the source has one. But not all sources have a DOI. DOI stands for digital object identifier and it’s sort of like a social security number for scholarly articles because an article will have the same DOI no matter where you access it. Most DOIs look something like this: 10.1017/S0018246X06005966. In MLA and APA citations, the DOI is at the end and is formatted like this: doi: 10.1017/S0018246X06005966. Notice the lower-case letters in the DOI label, this is required.
What to do in MLA: If the source you are citing does not have a DOI, then MLA says to include the web address (also called the URL) for the source. The web address might be at the bottom of the pages of the source you are citing. Leave the https:// off of the URL in your citation. If the source you are citing does not have a DOI or a web address, then you just have to cite it without that information.
What to do in APA: If the research source you are citing does not have a DOI, you don’t need to do anything. APA does not recommend putting the source’s web address in your citation if there is no DOI.
No examples for this scenario.
If you are missing other information, just include what you have. It’s best not to guess or make up information to include in the citation, since that can lead to confusion for your reader.