Citing Sources with Missing Information
In general, resources are cited using the author, year of publication, title, source, and additional information depending on the resource type. If you cannot find something like a link, DOI number, volume number, etc. you may omit that information.
See below for examples for how to cite sources missing pieces of information.
If you are unsure how to format a citation, contact a librarian.
No Author
If a source does not have an author or editor, use the title as the first part of the citation.
For both the reference list and in-text citations, use italics for book titles.
The titles of articles, chapters, and web pages should be in regular font for the reference list but have quotation marks in the in-text citations. Longer titles can be shortened to just a few key words for an in-text citation.
Reference Page Format:
Title. (Year of publication). Format the remainder according to resource type.
Reference Page Example:
FAQ. (2022). Camp Bow Wow. https://www.campbowwow.com/about-us/faqs/
In-text Citation Examples:
... ("FAQ," 2022).
... ("FAQ," 2022, para. 3).
No Date
Use (n.d.) in place of the year if the source does not have a listed date of publication or last review.
Reference Page Format:
Author, A. A. (n.d.). Format the remainder according to resource type.
Reference Page Example:
Weaver, R. (n.d.). Richard Weaver's enlarged hymn book. Morgan and Chase.
In-text Citation Examples:
According to Weaver (n.d.) ...
...(Weaver, n.d.).
...(Weaver, n.d., p. 98).
No Title
For sources without a title, describe the source in brackets. This will not impact your in-text citations.
Reference Page Format:
Author, A. A. (Year). [Description of source]. Format the remainder according to resource type.
Reference Page Example:
Smith, F. (2018). [Corpus of Amazon reviews for qualitative coding project]. Unpublished raw data.
In-text Citation Examples:
According to Smith (2018) ...
...(Smith, 2018)
No Page Numbers
A source lacking page numbers will only impact your in-text citations.
- If the source is short, count paragraphs from the top of the document and include the paragraph number in the in-text citation.
- If the source is long and has section headings, you can include the section heading in lieu of the paragraph number.
Paragraph Number In-text Citation Example:
... (Mayo Clinic, 2022, para. 6).
Section Heading In-text Citation Example:
...(Mayo Clinic, 2022, Complications section).
