Social media

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A social media post: How do I write the reference list entry?

Example

amuhith. (2020, February). Lovely place, food n value Just round the corner from Winton high street. Been coming here for years with my family. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g186262-d5814505-Reviews-The_Bay_Tree-Bournemouth_Dorset_England.html

 Author – WHO? For sites like TripAdvisor, Facebook etc. the author name may be a family name followed by initials “Author, A.A.”, or the name of an organization, or the name of an organization [Username] or just the Username. Check you have included the period “.” in the correct place.

Date – WHEN? Write the date the comment was posted in the format year, month date number, enclosed in parentheses (  ). Check you have included the period “.” in the correct place.

Title – WHAT? Write the text of a social media post up to the first 20 words in italics. Note the presence of audiovisuals (photos, videos) in square brackets [  ]. “Social media posts might also contain nonstandard spelling and capitalization, hashtags and emojis. Do not alter the spelling and capitalization in a social media reference. Retain hashtags and links. Replicate emojis, if possible.” (APA, 2020, p.348). If the post includes images, videos, thumbnail links to outside sources indicate this in square brackets [Video]. End the title with a period “.”.

Source – WHERE? You should include the URL as a hyperlink (i.e. beginning with http:// or https://).

Corresponding in-text citation styles

Parenthetical citation: The restaurant was highly recommended (amuhith, 2020).

Narrative citation: amuhith highly recommends the restaurant (2020).

For more information, see

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), pp.344-349.

American Psychological Association. (n.d). Reference examples – a webpage on a website. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples#fb