Citations - APA: When Information Is Missing

• No Author
• No Date
• No Page Numbers
• No Title
• No Database Name

If no author or creator is provided, start the citation with the title/name of the item you are citing instead. Follow the title/name of the item with the date of publication, and the continue with other citation details.

Note: an author/creator won't necessarily be a person's name. It may be an organization or corporation, for example Health Canada or a username on a site such a YouTube.

In-Text

If no author or creator is provided, use a shortened version of the title where you'd normally put the author's last name. 

If you're citing something which is part of a bigger work, like an article from a magazine, newspaper, journal or encyclopedia, or chapter or short story from a book, put the shortened title in quotation marks in your in-text citation. 

Example, paraphrasing: ("A Few Words," 2014) 

If you're citing an entire work, like a book, website, video, etc., italicize the shortened title in your in-text citation

Example, 'paraphrasing: (A Few Words, 2014)

Anonymous

If and only if an item is signed as being created by Anonymous, use "Anonymous" where you'd normally put the author's name.

Alphabetical Order in References List

When putting works in alphabetical order, ignore initial articles such as "the," "a," or "an." For example the title The best of California would be alphabetized as if it started with the word best instead of the word The

If the title begins with a number, alphabetize it as if the number was spelled out. For example the title 5 ways to succeed in business would be alphabetized under F as if it had started with the word Five.

If no date is provided, use the initials n.d. where you would normally put the date.

Also use the initials n.d. if the date of content is difficult to determine, such as on a Wikipedia page.

Page numbers may not be provided for some items, such as online materials. If this is the case:

References List

If a citation would normally include page numbers but none are provided, skip the page numbers in the citation.

In-Text Citation - Quoting Directly

When quoting directly in the text of your paper, you would normally include page numbers if they were given. If there are no page numbers given:

• If there are numbered paragraphs, indicate the paragraph number instead of the page number with the word "para." before it. You may also count the paragraph number from the beginning of your source. For example: (Smith, 2012, para. 3)
• If there are no numbered paragraphs, but there are headings, give the name of the heading, followed by the word "section" and the number of the paragraph within the section it is from. For example: (Smith, 2012, Discussion section, para. 3)

Occasionally an item may not have a title. If you are citing something with no identified title, write a description of the item placed in square brackets. Put this description in brackets where you'd normally put the title.

If you find an article or eBook using the library databases make sure to look for the database name listed on the detailed record (usually listed towards the bottom).

If it is not listed on the detailed record and you can't tell which one database it is from, enter the name of the database provider (e.g. Proquest, EBSCO, etc.) as the database.