How to cite a contribution to the Forum

Advanced search

CortoManuscript TPScribbles TPSMF Default ThemeThemis TP

[Randall Sadler]

APA and MLA citation formats for posts--please give credit where credit is due!  Please cite contribution by others, and feel free to list your own contributions on your Vita!

Whether you are citing a contribution by another member or one of your own, here is some useful information from Diana Hacker's Research and Documentation Online:  http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/.  You'll find both APA and MLA styles below for citing information from an Online Posting.

APA Documentation:  This is a slight modification of Hacker's documentation style found at:  http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/p04_c09_s2.html#24 .  In this case, I include two dates in the citation (a modification to more accurately identify the posting at the specific time it was downloaded) and the name of the Forum.  So, an example for a posting from the ESL Reading and Writing Resources Forum (for the posting you are reading right now), in APA style would look like this:

Sadler, R. (2006, November 3). How to cite a contribution to the
     Forum.  TESL Reading and Writing Forum.  Retreived
     November 4th, 2006, from
     http://www.eslweb.org/resources/index.php?topic=256.0

In the above example, you find:

• the name of the contributor (in this case me!),
• the date of the posting (found at the top or bottom of the post),
• the title of the post,
• the name of the Forum (in italics),
• the date that you downloaded the post (valid if you document a source you found rather than created),
• the URL where the posting may be found

MLA Documentation:  Again, based on Diana Hackers information, found at:  http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/p04_c08_s2.html#35

Sadler, R. "How to cite a contribution to the
     Forum." 3 Nov. 2006. TESL Reading and Writing Forum.
     4 Nov. 2006.
     http://www.eslweb.org/resources/index.php?topic=256.0

In the above example, you find:

• the name of the contributor (in this case me!),
• the title of the post (in quotation marks),
• the date of the posting (found at the top or bottom of the post--also not how the date is cited differently from MLA),
• the name of the Forum,
• the date that you downloaded the post (valid if you document a source you found rather than created),
• the URL where the posting may be found