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Finding and Evaluating Web Sources: Citing Sources

This guide gives tips and tricks for finding web sources and evaluating their value for academic research.

Introduction

There's a common misconception that content must be free to use if it can be found easily online. When it comes to information used for academic research, this is not always the case. Just like any other images, words, or ideas you use to build and support your argument, you must cite your sources accurately.

Citing Tweets

Most published style guides do not include citation guidelines for social media sources. This is how some different citation styles suggest citing a source from Twitter in your bibliography.

If your citation style is not listed here, try searching its website for a Q&A section or a blog—this is typically the way they address updates, additions, or other less common style points.

Please note: The symbols <> indicate where citation information from your source should go. Anything not enclosed in those symbols is a required part of the citation.

MLA Style

<Last Name>, <First Name> (<Twitter username>). "<Entire text of tweet>." <Date of tweet>, <time of tweet>. Tweet.

Example: Athar, Sohaib (ReallyVirtual). “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).” 1 May 2011, 3:58 p.m. Tweet.

APA Style

<Twitter username>. (<Year of tweet>, <month and day of tweet>). <Entire text of tweet> [Twitter post]. Retrieved from <URL of tweet>.

Example: BarackObama. (2009, July 15). Launched American Graduation Initiative to help additional 5 mill. Americans graduate college by 2020: http://bit.ly/gcTX7 [Twitter post]. Retrieved from http://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/2651151366

Chicago Style

Per the Chicago Style blog (linked above), "in the text, you can incorporate the facts into a sentence: In a Twitter post on September 14, 2011, Garrett Kiely (@gkiely) wrote, 'Using Google, Authors Guild takes 2 mins to connect an author with an ‘orphaned work’: bit.ly/nqyjOo.'"

<Author's name>, Twitter post, <Month and date, year, time of tweet>, <URL of author's Twitter feed>.

Example: Garrett Kiely, Twitter post, September 14, 2011, 8:50 a.m., http://twitter.com/gkiely.

| Citation Management

Have a lot of citations you want to enter in your works cited/references list? Try a citation manager.

Do you need the Web or Desktop version?

 

  • Organize your research Include citations while you write your paper
  • Build a bibliography in a variety of formats
  • Import references from library databases and Google Scholar.