How to Put a Resource on a Reference Page Without an Author

When citing a work in your bibliography, the author's name always comes first, but if there is no author, you may not know what to do. The work may have a corporate author, such as the American Red Cross; it may actually list its author's name as "Anonymous;" or it may have no author citation at all. Each case has a slightly different procedure for you to follow. Additionally, although MLA and APA formats follow the same rules for corporate authors, they have slightly different rules for works with no author and for works attributed to "Anonymous."

Instructions

  1. APA

    • 1

      Cite a work with a corporate author by writing the name of the organization that wrote the work as its author. Write the words in the organization's name in order; do not try to imitate putting the last name first by changing the order of the words. Do not use abbreviations even if the organization is best known by its abbreviation. For instance, if you are citing the World Health Organization's website, cite "World Health Organization" as the author, not "WHO."

    • 2

      Cite a work with no listed author by writing the title of the book, article or website in place of the author's name, before the date of publication. In essence, whatever citation you would normally put immediately after the date of publication will instead go before it. For instance, if you were citing a journal article with an author, the title of the article would usually go after the date, so you would write the title before the date instead.

    • 3

      Cite a work which actually lists "Anonymous" as its author by writing "Anonymous" in place of the author's name.

    • 4

      List the entries alphabetically by the first word in the organization's name or the title of the article, book, website or chapter. Do not count the words "a," "an" and "the" when determining alphabetical order. For instance, if you are citing "A New Parent's Guide to Infant Care," you would alphabetize it under "New," not "A."

    MLA

    • 5

      As with APA style, cite a work with a corporate author by writing the name of the organization that wrote the work as its author. Write the words in the organization's name in order; do not try to imitate putting the last name first by changing the order of the words. Do not use abbreviations even if the organization is best known by its abbreviation. For instance, if you are citing the World Health Organization's website, cite "World Health Organization" as the author, not "WHO."

    • 6

      Omit the author's name if you wish to cite a work with no listed author or with "Anonymous" as its author. You will simply begin with the item that would normally be second in the citation: the title of the book, article or website.

    • 7

      As with APA, list the entries alphabetically by the first word in the organization's name or the title of the article, book, website or chapter. Do not count the words "a," "an" and "the" when determining alphabetical order. For instance, if you are citing "A New Parent's Guide to Infant Care," you would alphabetize it under "New," not "A."

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