Determine the style of citation that must be used. Regardless of whether you are writing a term paper for school or an article for publication, the institution where you are submitting your work will have a preference for what style citations must be used. The three most common are MLA, APA or Chicago.
Gather all appropriate information from the website. The information you gather will vary depending on the style you are following. For example, Modern Language Association (MLA) no longer requires a URL in the citation. Generally speaking, it is not a bad idea to record as much information as possible in the initial stages, so long as your finished product follows the correct guidelines.
Using American Psychological Association (APA) style is fairly easy. Only four elements must be obtained to cite a web page: author, date, title and source. If the format of the website is unusual, you may also need to include a format description in brackets in between title and source information. In-text citation follows standard author and page formats. Usually there is no page number, so just citing the author is common practice.
An example looks like:
Lee, Jessie. (2011, March 2). President Obama on the Tragic Events in Germany [Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/02/president-obama-tragic-events-germany
If no date is available insert "n.d." instead.
Following MLA format is quite different than APA. Unlike APA, MLA has decided that URL information is unnecessary. Instead, MLA requires a greater amount of information about the site providing the information. The general format is author, title, name of the website, sponsoring publisher, date published, format type, and date that the website was last accessed by you. Like APA, in-text citation uses the author and page number format, but usually, just the author is available.
An example:
Lee, Jessie "President Obama on the Tragic Events in Germany." The White House Blog. The White House, 2 March 2011. Web. 2 March 2011.
If you cannot find the source of the publisher use "n.p." and if you cannot locate a date of publication use "n.d."
Citing in the Chicago Manual of Style requires you to pick one of two systems. Chicago has both a notes and bibliography system and an author-date system similar to APA and MLA. The only real difference between the two is whether there is a bibliography or a footnote. The format is the same for each: title, publisher, date accessed and URL.
For example:
"President Obama on the Tragic Events in Germany," The White House, accessed March 2, 2011, http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/02/president-obama-tragic-events-germany