Mla In Text Citation Website No Author No Page Number

Okay, friend. Let’s talk about the MLA in-text citation nightmare. You know the one. You’ve found a golden nugget of information online. But the website has no author. And—plot twist—no page number either. Your professor might as well have asked you to cite a ghost, right?

Breathe. I’ve got your back. We’re going to crack this code together over our imaginary coffee. It’s way easier than it sounds. I promise you won’t need a séance.

The Short, Happy Answer

When you have no author and no page number, you don’t panic. You just use the first chunk of the full Works Cited entry. Usually, that’s the article title or the webpage title.

Think of it like a game of telephone, but with citations. Instead of saying “Smith says,” you say “The article says.” And since there are no pages, you just… don’t include them. Simple, right?

Let’s get specific. What does this look like in the middle of your paper? You’ll put the title (or a shortened version) in quotation marks. Or you’ll use italics if it’s a whole website.

Scenario One: The Article Title

Let’s say you found a blog post called “Why Cats Are Better Than Pizza.” No author listed. No page numbers (because it’s a webpage). How do you cite it in-text?

You write: You would be surprised to learn that cats outrank pizza in global satisfaction surveys (“Why Cats Are Better Than Pizza”). See? The title becomes your stand-in author.

But what if the title is super long? Like, “An Exhaustive Study of the Feline-Pizza Paradigm and Its Implications for Modern Snacking Behavior”? Shorten it! Just use the first few words that make sense.

For example: The study claims cats are superior to all forms of Italian cuisine (“An Exhaustive Study”). Nobody will hunt you down for cutting a title short. It’s allowed. Relax.

Scenario Two: The Whole Website

Maybe your source isn’t a single article. Maybe it’s a whole website’s homepage. Like, say, the website of the International Cat Lovers Association. No author. No pages.

Then you use the website name in italics. In-text, it looks like this: According to the International Cat Lovers Association, cats demand at least three naps per day.

Notice no page number? Yep. We move on with our lives. The reader knows you’re talking about the whole darn website.

What About No Author and No Date?

Oh, you’re feeling spicy today, aren’t you? Fine. If you have no author, no page number, and no date—what I call the “ghost source”—you still have options.

You just note that there’s no date. In the Works Cited entry, you’d write “n.d.” (meaning “no date”). In the text, you still use the title. It’s the same game, just spookier.

For example: The study found that ghost websites still get traffic (“Why Cats Are Better Than Pizza”). Don’t let the missing date freak you out. The title is your lifeline.

The One Rule You Cannot Break

Here’s the secret sauce: whatever you use in the in-text citation must match the first word of the full citation in your Works Cited list. If you start the Works Cited entry with “Why Cats,” then your in-text citation better say “Why Cats.” Total consistency.

[55] Mla In Text Citation Website Example No Author

Think of it like a promise. Your reader needs to find the source in the back. If you use “Pizza,” but your Works Cited says “Cats,” you’ve broken the promise. And broken promises in MLA?

That’s a big no-no. Professors can smell that from a mile away. So just matchy-matchy. Easy.

But Wait—What If I Have a Corporate Author?

Great question! What if the website is from a company like Nike or The Mayo Clinic? That counts as an author. Even if no person’s name is listed, the organization is the author.

So you’d write: A recent study by Mayo Clinic suggests naps improve memory. You do use the organization name in-text. That’s not the scary “no author” scenario.

Only use the title trick when there’s truly no author at all—not even a corporate one. Got it? Good. Now you’re a citation ninja.

The Funny Part: Why Does This Even Happen?

Honestly? The internet is chaos. People write blogs, make websites, and forget to put their names on them. It’s like leaving a birthday card unsigned. We all have that one friend.

And page numbers? On a webpage? That’s like asking a river to show you its table of contents. It doesn’t work that way. But MLA, being the kind of old friend who adapts, says, “Fine, just skip the pages.”

So you can stop hunting for page numbers. Save your scroll wheel. You’re welcome.

A Quick Cheat Sheet

Let me give you the bulletproof version. Case one: No author, no pages → use the title in quotes. Case two: No author, but a website name → use the website in italics. Case three: No author, no date, no pages → same as case one, just note “n.d.” in the Works Cited.

Case four: You’re still confused? That’s okay. Just remember: the title is your friend. It’s your passport. It’s the thing that gets you from the text to the bibliography without getting lost.

And if you ever forget? Google it. But now you won’t have to. You’re the one who help friends now.

So go forth. Cite that weird, authorless, pageless website. Your professor will nod approvingly. And you can sip your coffee with the smug satisfaction of someone who just nailed MLA 9th edition.

Cheers! And may your sources always have at least a title.