Blogs
MLA:
Shoemaker, Steve. “In Praise of Netflix.” Weblog. Laguna Lacuna. 8 June 2006.
[author.] [“title of entry.”] [type of post.] [title of weblog.] [posting date.]
Blogspot. 27 June 2006 <http://lagunalacuna.blogspot.com/>.
[site sponsor.] [date of access] [<URL>.]APA:
Shoemaker, S. (2006, June 8). In praise of Netflix. Laguna Lacuna.
[author.] [(posting date).] [title of entry.] [title of weblog.]
Retrieved June 27, 2006, from Blogspot: http://lagunalacuna.blogspot.com/.
[Retrieved date of access,] [from site sponsor:] [URL.]Chicago:
23. Shoemaker, “In Praise of Netflix.”
[fn. #.] [author last name, “title.”]
[Shortened Chicago reference; see More Notes on Chicago Style for more information.]
[Note: In the Bibliography, Chicago style does not generally include date of access.]
Blogs—an abbreviation of “weblogs”—are websites or areas of websites devoted to dated reflections by the site’s author. Many blogs are hosted on or presented as private websites where the author claims little special expertise or no professional affiliation relevant to the blog’s topic. In these cases, see the discussion of Private Websites, and use the same care when evaluating the material you access.
But blogs are increasingly included as a feature of organization websites (Amazon.com, for instance, now invites authors to post blogs on their work) or as elements of online versions of print periodicals (the New York Times website hosts several blogs by reporters and editors). When using a blog that’s identified with a larger journal or organization, follow the advice listed for those general sources.
Then, for MLA style, add the word “Weblog” after the title either of the article or of the specific Webpage you’re using (if any), or after the author’s name. This genre is still evolving, and indicating that your material is from a blog will alert readers to what is sometimes a more casual or meditative tone in texts of this nature. Even when hosted by a recognized organization, most blogs should probably be treated as popular rather than scholarly sources. See Scholarly vs. Popular Sources for more information.
In addition to identifying the source as a blog, the example above also lists “Blogspot” as the site’s sponsor. This information might be considered analogous to the organization that sponors an organization website. But in some cases, it may not be necessary to give the site sponsor. Blogspot, for instance, does not supervise posters’ comments very closely. A sponsor like “Facebook” has more rules and some restrictions to access, but is still doesn’t stand behind the material as much as an online journal would. When deciding whether to include the site sponsor, use your judgment: if the blog pursues a theme in common with the sponsor, list the sponsor.
Note: As discussed in the section on How To Cite, it’s often useful to identify your source in the body of your paper (and not just in your citation or footnote); this identification is especially important when you use blogs. If you give a sense of what kind of web source you’re using, the reader will be better able to understand the context of your evidence. See Special Demands of Internet Sources for more information.
Note, also: You may notice that listing Internet sources often takes more time and care than listing print sources. Since the authorship and location of Web sources are harder to establish, readers need even more information in order to assess sources and to retrieve them for further study. See Special Demands of Internet Sources for more information.
Back to Sources | Back to How to Cite Internet Sources index
