Language Center Program, Writing Tips
Volunteer State Community College | Division of Humanities
The general rule for citing all sources is to include in the parenthetical citation the information that is farthest left in the relevant entry on the Works Cited page and to follow this information with the page number(s) where the quote/paraphrase is found. Thus, if the entry begins with a title, as will most entries for Web pages and many newspaper articles, the citation will include a key word from the title (remember to format - quotation marks or italics - this key word correctly). If the source is from an electronic database, the Works Cited page entry will probably begin with the author's last name, and, thus, the parenthetical citation will include this name. Regardless of whether the entry begins with a title or an author's name, nearly all sources retrieved from the Internet are considered unpaginated; consequently, a page number should not be included in the parenthetical citation UNLESS your instructor requires you to do so. And remember, if you have introduced the quote/paraphrase with the information found farthest to the left in the relevant Works Cited page entry (i.e. the title or author), then you do NOT need to repeat this information in the citation. (Since you do not need to repeat information and Internet sources are unpaginated, in such cases, no citation is needed.)
