How to quote something on twitter, facebook or google + in APA format
There are different citation formats the social networks, including the contents of Twitter, Facebook y Google+.
Three ways to cite social media
There are three main ways to cite social media content in an APA style document:
- With a URL,
- As a personal communication
- As a typical APA-style in-text citation and reference list entry.
General mentions with a URL
If you are talking about a website or page in general in a document (including but not limited to social media), it is sufficient to provide the URL in the text the first time it is mentioned. No need to enter the list of references. An example:
Personal communications
If you cite specific social media information that readers might not have access to that content (for example, due to friends-only privacy settings or because the sharing occurred in a private message), please cite the content as a personal communication. A personal communication citation should be used because there is no direct and reliable route for all readers to retrieve the source. Here's an example:
As a typical APA style citation in the text and an entry in the reference list
Finally, if you are citing specific information retrievable from social media, provide an in-text citation (with author and date) and a reference list entry (with author, date, title, and source URL) . The guidelines below explain how to format each of these elements for any social media quote, including examples.
Author
- First, provide the actual last name and initials of an individual author in reverse format (Author, A.A.) or the full name of a group. This allows the reference to be associated and alphabetized along with any other works by that author.
- Second, provide information about the social network. On Twitter, provide the author's username in square brackets. On Facebook and Google+, when the author is an individual, spell their first name in square brackets.
- The author reflects who posted the content, not necessarily who created it. Credit additional individuals in the narrative if necessary.
Date
- Provide the year, month, and day for items that have a specific date associated with them, such as status updates, tweets, photos, and videos; otherwise, provide only the year.
- If the date is unknown, use “n.d.” (for no date) instead.
- If the date is unknown but can be reasonably approximated, use "ca." (for circa) followed by the approximate year, in square brackets.
- For multiple citations by the same author in the same year (regardless of month or day), alphabetize entries by title and add a lowercase letter after the year (eg, 2013a, 2013b; nd-a, nd-b; or [ca. 2013a], [ca. 2013b]). Ignore non-cover characters such as the at sign (@) and the pound sign (#) when alphabetizing.
Qualification
- Provide the name of the page or the content or title of the post (up to the first 40 words) as the title.
- Don't italicize the titles of status updates, tweets, pages, or photos; italicize the titles of stand-alone items, such as videos and photo albums.
- If the item does not contain words (for example, a photograph without a caption), provide a description of the item in square brackets.
- Describe the form of content (eg tweet, Facebook status update, photo, timeline, video archive) after the title in square brackets.
Source
- Provide a retrieval URL that leads as directly as possible to the cited content (click a post's date stamp to access its archived URL).
- Provide a retrieval date if the content can change (for example, entire feeds or pages). Do not provide a retrieval date if the post already has a specific date associated with it (for example, status updates, tweets, photos, and videos).
Thank you! Great information!