The problem, from a traditional point of view, with online sources is that they often do not have a page number and also sometimes lack an author's name. Therefore, it can be tricky to determine what to put in the parentheses at the end of the quotation or paraphrase you are using. If there is an author's name and page number, the answer is easy: simply put the author's name, then the page number, with...
The problem, from a traditional point of view, with online sources is that they often do not have a page number and also sometimes lack an author's name. Therefore, it can be tricky to determine what to put in the parentheses at the end of the quotation or paraphrase you are using. If there is an author's name and page number, the answer is easy: simply put the author's name, then the page number, with no comma in between, in parentheses after the quote. The tricky part is to repress the natural tendency to include a comma between the name and page number.
If there is no page number, simply leave it out. If there is no author's name, start moving in to the next identifying piece of information that a reader would find in a "Works Cited" page citation: the title. If you do not have that, keep moving in according to the page format: Do you have the name of the website or blog? When you do locate a way to identify the source, reduce it to its first important word or words and use those with a page number, if you have one. It may that your citation just includes some key words of a website (Italian Cooking) if that is all you can get. MLA is now also recommending that you try to incorporate the citation as far as possible into your text, in which case you would state "According to the Italian Cooking, the amount of olive oil ..." and then avoid the in-line citation.
In the ever-changing world of citations that the internet has brought on, the most important rule is to remember the purpose of a citation and use that to guide your decisions in a tricky situation. Citations were invented so that a reader can easily find and check the source of your information. Being able to trace a path backwards to sources is at the heart of scholarship. So, if in a pinch, ask yourself, "Will the citation I am using quickly and easily lead the reader to the correct source on my Works Cited page, and will that source lead the reader as easily and accurately as possible to my original source?" There is nothing more frustrating to a scholar than not being able to trace a source.
All of this is easier to see than put into words. It would be a good idea to do a search on "MLA in-line citations for online sources" for examples.
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