Webinar Citation Generator

Your citations

Enter the webinar's title and its presenter or host to see your citations.

How to Use the Webinar Citation Generator

1. 1. Say which version you used. Choose the recording if it was posted where readers can watch it, or the live session if it was never recorded.
2. 2. Enter the presenter, the title and the host. Type the title in sentence case. The host is the organization that ran the webinar, not the meeting software.
3. 3. Give the dates. The date of the session and, for a recording, the date it was posted when that differs.
4. 4. Add the recording's URL. If it sits on a site such as YouTube rather than the host's own, name that site too.

Recorded or Live: Why It Changes the Citation

A citation tells readers where to find a source. A recording can be found; a live session that was never posted cannot, and each style handles that difference its own way.

APA 7 gives a recorded webinar the presenter, the year, the italic title with [Webinar], and the host as publisher, followed by the URL. An unrecorded webinar is on APA's list of personal communications: cite the presenter's initials and surname with the exact date, and leave it out of the reference list. MLA 9 styles a webinar's title like a course title — capitalized, but neither italic nor in quotation marks. Chicago 18 has no webinar example, so the generator follows the Chicago Manual's Quick Guide sample for a recorded virtual lecture: the title in quotation marks, the date of the event, then the posting date and who posted it.

Webinar Citation Examples

Angela Gibson's MLA Style 101 webinar for the Modern Language Association — the MLA Style Center's own example — held live on August 22, 2017, and posted as a recording on August 30, 2017.

The recording

The live session

Common Mistakes

• Citing the live session when you watched the recording. Cite the version you used. A recording has its own posting date and a URL readers can follow.
• Giving an unrecorded webinar an APA reference. It is a personal communication: in the text only, with the exact date.
• Italicizing the title in MLA. MLA treats a webinar's title like a course title, in plain type.
• Treating the software as the author. The presenter is the author and the organization is the host. Zoom or YouTube is at most where the recording lives.
• Leaving out the host. The organization that ran the webinar is the publisher in both APA and MLA.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you cite a webinar in APA 7?

For a recording, give the presenter, the year, the title in italics with [Webinar], the host and the URL: Gibson, A. (2017). MLA style 101 [Webinar]. Modern Language Association. https://outreach.mla.org/mla-style. In text: (Gibson, 2017). A webinar that was not recorded is cited as a personal communication instead.

How do you cite a webinar that was not recorded?

In APA, cite it in the text only, as a personal communication: (A. Gibson, personal communication, August 22, 2017). MLA still gives it a Works Cited entry dated by the session and ending with Webinar. Chicago cites it like a talk you attended, with the host and the date.

How do you cite a recorded webinar in MLA?

Name the presenter, give the title without italics, then the host, the date the recording was posted and the URL: Gibson, Angela. MLA Style 101. Modern Language Association, 30 Aug. 2017, outreach.mla.org/mla-style. In text: (Gibson).

Which date do I use for a recorded webinar?

MLA uses the date the recording was posted. APA gives the year of the webinar. Chicago gives both — the date of the session and then posted with the posting date — just as its Quick Guide does for a virtual lecture.

What if the recording is on YouTube?

Add YouTube as the site hosting the recording and give its URL; MLA and Chicago then name YouTube after the host. If what you watched is simply a video on someone's channel, the YouTube Citation Generator cites it as a video.

How do you cite a webinar in Chicago style?

Put the presenter and the title in quotation marks, then webinar, the date, the posting date and who posted it, and the URL: Angela Gibson, “MLA Style 101,” webinar, August 22, 2017, posted August 30, 2017, by Modern Language Association, https://outreach.mla.org/mla-style. The shortened note is Gibson, “MLA Style 101.”