• 3-minute read
• 30th December 2017

MLA Referencing – Social Media

Social media is everywhere these days. Even referencing systems have had to catch up with it. And as such, most now have specific rules for citing social media posts. Here, for example, we’re looking at how to cite Facebook and Twitter posts using MLA referencing.

Citing Social Media

It’s fair to say that Facebook and Twitter are not conventional academic sources. If you’re looking for a historical fact or a scientific theory, for example, you’re better off sticking to books.

However, it’s fine to cite social media posts if they are, for example company statements or reactions to current events. Or, of course, if you’re writing about social media itself!

In-Text Citations

The main thing to keep in mind when citing social media with MLA is that you don’t have any page numbers to work with. As such, citations should just identify the author.

For a Facebook post, this means giving the surname of the poster or the account name. Usually, it will be enough to simply mention this in the text:

On Facebook, Julia Gillard promised ‘political support’ for the scheme.

If the author or account isn’t mentioned in the text, though, it should be given in parentheses:

The aim of this is to ensure ‘a quality education for all children’ (Gillard).

With a tweet, cite the user’s Twitter handle rather than their surname:

She said that the portraits ‘moved [her] beyond words’ (@juliagillard).

Ideally, in all cases you should identify the platform and account for the post you’re citing. This will help readers find it if needed.

Works Cited List

In your ‘Works Cited’ list, the format for a social media post is similar to other online sources. However, there are some specific requirements depending on the platform. With a Facebook post, the standard format is:

Surname, First Name or Account Name. ‘Excerpt from post’. Facebook, date posted, time posted, URL.

We use an excerpt here because Facebook posts don’t have a title. The time of the post won’t always be obvious, but you can find it by hovering the cursor over the date.

For a tweet, the standard format is similar, but you give the Twitter handle in first position, the name of the poster (if known) in brackets afterwards, and the complete text of the tweet:

Twitter handle (Author Name). ‘Text of tweet’. Twitter, date posted, time posted, URL.

As such, we would list the posts used in the examples above as follows:

Gillard, Julia. ‘In my role as Chair of the Global Partnership for Education…’ Facebook, 29 Sept. 2017, 3:01 pm, www.facebook.com/juliagillard/posts/10155738538667328.

@juliagillard (Julia Gillard). ‘Vincent Fantauzzo’s portraits of Indigenous Australian artists moved me beyond words. Delighted he will be painting my official portrait. JG’. Twitter, 22 Sept. 2017, 3:56 pm, twitter.com/JuliaGillard/status/911061529449005056.

You may notice that we’ve shortened the names of months in these examples. This is standard in MLA, which abbreviates months in references if they’re more than four letters long.