APA 7th edition made this complicated. It does different formatting for the digital counterpart of a traditional medium, like The New York Times, and a purely digital source, like BBCNews or CNN.
Example: Source Without a Print Counterpart
Beaven, B. (2020, January 20). The modern phenomenon of the weekend. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200117-the-modern-phenomenon-of-the-weekend
- The article title is in italics
- The site name is plain
Example: Source With a Print Counterpart
Herrera, T. (2020, October 23). Don’t work on your party laptop or party on your work laptop. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/smarter-living/what-not-to-do-work-computer.html
- The article title is plain
- The site name is in italics
- This is the more common standard in general and in MLA format
How am I supposed to know which is which?
For starters, don't worry too much about this: our faculty are unlikely to be super picky for this level of detail in most cases.
That said, part of your research process and selecting your sources should involve doing a bit of research about your research -- i.e. before you settle on an article, take a look around to see what else is there, what kind of site/publication it is, and how reliable/credible you can gauge the info to be.
If you aren't already familiar with a source...
- Look for an About page: does it mention a print publication? Was the company founded before the internet was even an option to publish on?
- Do a Google search for the name of the publication (website). Does their result have a blurb that mentions being e.g. a magazine?
- Look for mentions of subscribing -- what kind of access does a subscription provide, and is a physical item part of it? Is it the same content as on the site?
