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Citation mechanics

Work with no author

Also called: anonymous, no author

A source with no identifiable author, cited by its title in the position the author would occupy.

When nobody is credited, the title moves to the front of the reference and alphabetises there. In-text, most styles use a shortened title in the author slot: (“Reading Room at Dusk,” 2012) in APA, with quotation marks for article-length works and italics for book-length ones.

Only use the literal word “Anonymous” as the author if the work itself is signed that way — some older editions genuinely are. An unsigned web page is not “Anonymous”; it is a work with no author.

Check for a corporate author before concluding there is none. Most unsigned institutional pages are authored by the institution.

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See also

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