Website that you would use for your dental hygiene assignments would include any information found on oral health, that is not a formal magazine or journal article. The website would contain information about an association, company, products, services, and topics.
Always use credible websites. Read the about us section to determine the reliability of the website.
In most cases, the information that you use will be considered PART OF A WEBSITE, see the section below to learn more.
Here is the link to the section of the official NLM citation manual, that will explain more about Websites
There are two ways to cite a website. One is for the entire website and one is for part of a website. How do you know what to use? A part of a website refers to a section of a website that has its own title. Most citations will be for parts of a website.
Format for Parts of a Website
Title of homepage [Type of medium]. Place of publication: publisher; date of publication of homepage. Title of part; date of publication of part [date of citation of part]; [pagination of part]. Available from:
Examples: American Dental Hygienists’ Association [Internet]. Chicago: American Dental Hygienists’ Association; c2012. Reimbursement; c2012 [cited 2020 Oct 6]; [about 3 screens]. Available from: https://www.adha.org/reimbursement
The parts of citation explained:
Title of homepage: American Dental Hygienists' Association
*generally the title of the homepage will display prominently on the page and in the url.
Type of Medium: [Internet]
Place of publication: Chicago
*city and state of the company, dentist, organization, you may need to look at the contact us section to find this information
Publisher: American Dental Hygienist's Association
*usually it is the same as the title of the home page or it may be a corporation
Date of publication of homepage: c2012
*generally this information is found at the very bottom of the page. It may be the copyright date which is then put in the citation as c2022
Title of part: Reimbursement
*generally this will be the heading before the information
Date of publication: c2022
*some information will have a date at the beginning or the very end, if you cannot find a date, then you can use the copyright date
Date of citation of part: [cited 2020 Oct 6].
*this information is the date you used the source in your paper, and it takes the format that I listed
Availability: Available from: https://www.colgateprofessional.com/patient-education/articles/better-oral-health
*this is the web address for the website, that you can copy for the address bar, it has Available from: before the web adddress
Formats for (entire) Websites
Author. Title [Type of medium]. Place of Publication: Publisher; Date of Publication [Date of citation]. Availability:
Example: American Dental Hygienists’ Association [Internet]. Chicago: American Dental Hygienists’ Association; c2012 [cited 2020 Oct 6]. Available from: https://www.adha.org
Author: this example does not have an author
*generally the organization or a person's name is the author of the website
Title: American Dental Hygienists' Association
*name of the website, usually is a banner or part of the web address
Type of medium: [Internet]
Place of publication: Chicago
*include the city and state, if the town is not well known
Publisher: American Dental Hygienists' Association
*The title and publisher are the same in this example. The publisher is the organization or company that is responsible for the website.
Date of publication: c2012
*generally this will be the copyright date, always include the c before the year
Date of citation: [cited 2020 Oct 6]
*always in this format year, month abbreviated to 3 letters and day of month
Availability: Available from: url
For additional help with locating or determining the citation pieces, please refer to the online version of Citing Medicine, specifically the section on websites, which can be found by clicking on this link:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7274/
The author can be hard to identify. In a lot of cases, there is not an author.
Some tips for identifying the author.
1. Look at the web address, sometimes the name of the corporation or association will be included in the web address.
2. Look for the "about us" or "contact us" section. It may give a name to use.
If there is not an author, then you start with the Title of the website.
More information can be found using the Citing Medicine website, specifically the following link:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7274/box/A59691/?report=objectonly
The format for the title of a website is the same as the title of an article. Only capitalize the first word and any proper nouns, such as diseases or product name.
Example:
Better oral health may mean better overall health
The title of the website is generally depicted in large font or highlighted font.
For additional help determining the title please use the Citing Medicine guide at this link
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7274/box/A59882/?report=objectonly
The city of publication can be hard to find. Sometimes you can find it in the "contact us" section. It may also be at the bottom of the home page.
Always include the two letter state abbreviation capitalized if it is listed on the website.
Example:
city (State Abbreviation)
Chicago (IL)
The publisher and author can sometimes be confused in the identification process, and sometimes the publisher and the author are the same.
To identify the publisher, look for a copyright statement, look in the "contact us" or "about us" section.
If the publisher and author are the same, then use the abbreviation of the organization as the author and spell out the name of the organization in the publisher location.
Here is an example, you found an information on the American Dental Hygienists' Association website, ADHA is the abbreviation. The citation would list:
the author: ADHD
the publisher: American Dental Hygienists' Association
The date of publication may not be included or easily found on the website. Look for a copyright statement or last updated. If you cannot find a date of publication then simple put the date cited.
When you are citing a PART of a website, there are two dates to be included in the reference.
1. The date of publication of the website, which is usually the copyright date (a c with a circle around it).
2. The date of publication of the part of the website. It can be a date for the last update or it may actually have a day, month and year entry. If you cannot find a date for the part of the website, then you skip it and just put the date cited after the title of the part.
Generally, you may only find the year, but if there is a month and day then use that as well.
The citation date is the date that you found the information on the website. It is displayed in the following format:
[cited 2017 Jul 25]
It is always in square brackets. It starts with cited, and is followed by the year, the month (abbreviated with 3 letters) and the date.
Simply copy the address from the address bar and paste it into your reference list.
It follows this format:
Available from: https://www.colgateprofessional.com/patient-education/articles/better-oral-health