: What is the best way to cite an anonymous writer? When writing papers I sometimes discover texts online which are published without any kind of name attached. Often times these individuals want

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Kindness can be spread through communication. --No matter what may be different.. "anonymous"

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In such a situation, you may do two things. You may either cite the link or source referring to its title or you may cite it as “anonymous” in your references. The title of the book can be referred to in the bibliography in the name of “anonymous”.

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As per APA guidelines, to cite anonymous authors:

Unknown Author: If the work does not have an author, cite the source by its title in the signal phrase or use the first word or two in the parentheses. Titles of books and reports are italicized or underlined; titles of articles, chapters, and web pages are in quotation marks.

A similar study was done of students learning to format research papers ("Using APA," 2001).

Note: In the rare case the "Anonymous" is used for the author, treat it as the author's name (Anonymous, 2001). In the reference list, use the name Anonymous as the author.

The Chicago style recommends the following when the author is unknown:

Sources that have no known author or editor should be cited by title. Follow the basic format for "Footnote or Endnote" and "Corresponding Bibliographical Entry" that are exemplified above omitting author and/or editor names and beginning respective entries with the title of the source.

The Turabian style is almost the same as Chicago so I guess the above holds. If you are being very specific, this is the place to look for Turabian. It gives the following examples:

Bibliography:
The Book Title: A Subtitle; A Second Subtitle. CityOfPublication: PublisherName, PublishedYear.

Footnote:
The Book Title: A Subtitle; A Second Subtitle (CityOfPublication: PublisherName, PublishedYear), pageNr.

Author-only shortened note:
Book Title, pageNr.

Author-title shortened note:
Book Title, pageNr.

Title capitalization: Headline style

Reference:
The book title: A subtitle; A second subtitle. PublishedYear. CityOfPublication: PublisherName.

Parenthetical:
(Book title PublishedYear, pageNr)

Title capitalization: Sentence style

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