hey what's up guys in this video i'm
going to show you how to cite a tweet
in mla and apa style
for this example i'm going to get a
tweet from president obama's twitter
page
you can get all the information you need
to
cite a tweet from the tweet detail page
which you can get to by hovering over
tweet
i'm going to use this one right here and
clicking on expand
you might not see the the expand option
if
the tweet has media in it like an image
or video
like these two tweets here but if you
don't see expand just click on the tweet
box to expand
it and that'll expand the box and then
you can click on details
now that'll take you to the unique tweet
page and from here you can copy the
tweet which i'm gonna do now
and note that you'll have to copy the
entire tweet
for both apa and mla style
from here you can also copy the twitter
handle which in this case
is barack obama the name which in this
case is barack obama the date and the
time here at the bottom
and you can also copy the unique tweet
url
which is different from the twitter feed
page url
and you'll need the unique tweet url for
the apa references page what you don't
have to worry about
is including page numbers because tweets
don't have page numbers
so let's take a look at how to use all
this information and let's start with
in-text citation i'm going to go to my
sample mla document here for in-text
citation in mla you simply need to
provide
the author's last name either in the
text
as you introduce the quote or in
parentheses
after the quote so in my first example
here
i write in september president obama
and then the tweet would go here where
it says tweet goes here in my example
i'm going to paste the tweet that i
copied using paste special
i'm going to select unformatted text and
that pastes my tweet i don't have to do
anything else
but you do have to include quotes so the
tweet has to be inside quotations
and the period goes um after the quote
and before the the closing quotation
mark
if i don't mention the author like i
have in this second example here
in september the president tweeted so i
would
put my quote right here my tweet i'm
going to
actually i'm going to go back and copy
this tweet so
i don't have to keep um using
paste special i'm going to paste that
here
using ctrl v and for this example i do
have to include
um obama's last name in parentheses
after the quote
and before the period so the period
comes after the parenthetical entry
now let's take a look at how to do the
same thing in
apa style the american psychological
association
hasn't yet established strict guidelines
for citing tweets
but on the apa blog and let me go there
actually
to show you tweets
it's like the first thing that shows up
when you write apa site
tweets in google um on this blog page
um chelsea lee provides guidelines which
i think are pretty good
so for this tutorial i'm just going to
follow her lead
i'm going to go back to my document here
according to lee
instead of writing the author's last
name in parentheses
in apa style you write their twitter
handle
followed by the year the quote was made
so if i do include the author's last
name in the body of my text
i only have to include the date in
parentheses like i have
in this first example i write in
september president obama
and i follow that by the year in
parentheses tweeted
and so my tweet would go here inside
quotation marks
i'm going to paste it with ctrl v and it
gives me that little space at the end
i'm not sure why
um but the the year when you do mention
the author's name in the body of your
text
goes after um
the the author's name not after the
tweet
so just keep that in mind for apa style
if you don't mention the author in the
body of your text
so you might have something like in
september the president tweeted
and again the tweet goes right here
then you include the twitter handle
which is barack obama in my example
followed by a comma and the year inside
parentheses
and the period goes after the
parentheses not after the quote
and that's pretty much it now let's look
at the
mla works cited page and the apa
references page
so the format for mla is last name comma
first name
followed by the twitter handle in
parentheses followed by a period
and then the tweet inside quotation
marks
and then followed by the date in the day
month year format
followed by a comma followed by the time
and then followed by the word tweet so
this is the format right here
what i have right here is the format so
how would it look
in a real entry so i'm gonna just paste
my tweet where
the tweet belongs so it would look like
this
obama comma barack and then the twitter
handle in parentheses
and then follow that by a period then
the tweet inside quotation marks
and then the date today is actually the
fifth so uh
let me change that up and then the time
let me actually go get the real time
here it's actually 307 pm
so i'm going to change that to 307 and
then the word tweet
followed by a period and that's pretty
much it for the
for an entry in a works cited page for
an entry
in an apa references page the format is
a little bit different
it goes twitter handle followed by a
period
followed by the year in parentheses and
it goes year
comma month and day and then follow that
by a period
and then the tweet without quotation
marks
followed by the words twitter post
inside brackets
and then followed by a period and then
you write retrieved
from and you include the tweet url
so an example would look like this
barack obama
which is his twitter handle followed by
a period
followed by the date inside parentheses
just like you see here today's actually
the fifth so i'm going to change that
so it's a year comma month day
and again by a period followed by a
period and then the tweet goes here
so i'm going to paste my tweet and
that's followed by the words twitter
post
inside brackets and followed by a period
and then you write retrieved from and
here i would include
the tweet url so i'm going to go back
and get that
and remember that the tweet url is
different from
the twitter feed page url so i'm going
to
just control v this url here that gives
me a space i'm not really sure why
so the last thing i want to point out is
that for both mla
and apa style you would have to include
these
entries with a hanging indent and that
means that the first line is flush left
and subsequent lines are indented half
an inch and you can do that in writer
i'm going to bring up the styles and
formatting window by pressing f11
i'm going to select both of these
entries
i'm going to hold the ctrl key to select
both these entries
and i'm going to use the hanging indent
style the hanging indent paragraph style
and i'm going to modify this style real
quick to include a hanging indent
so the first for in the indent and
spacing tab
i'm going to set the b4 text to 0.5
inches
and that's going to force the entire
block of text to be indented to half an
inch
and i'm going to make sure the first
line is flush left by
negating that indent with a negative 0.5
inch
indent and the last thing i want to
point out is that if you're writing
these papers for school you would
probably have the line spacing set to
double
i'm going to leave it alone at single
because this is just an example
anyways now i'm going to click ok and
that doesn't do anything because i
haven't applied my hanging indent to
these
two um pieces of text yet so i'm going
to double click on hanging indent to
apply it
and that's it and you know make sure
that the first line is flush left and
subsequent lines
are indented half an inch and that's
really all there is to
setting tweets in mla and apa style