Skip to Main Content



Citation Style Guides

This page will provide links to various types of style guides available on the Internet. Use these to format citations for papers.

Citing Conferences Canceled due to COVID-19

There are many different variations on this question:  What if the in-person conference was canceled but it moved online? What if the conference was held, but I was unable to attend due to COVID-19 travel restrictions?

MLA recommends:

If the conference that accepted your presentation was canceled, you may list the presentation on your CV under a header such as “Accepted Papers” or “Invited Speeches” and note that the conference did not take place. The following provides an example:

Chen, Joanne. “Strategies for Teaching Grammar to First-Year College Students.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Milwaukee, WI, 25–28 Mar. 2020. Conference canceled.

APA recommends this same sort of thing, but also provides some additional guidance:

If the conference moved to online…cite it normally – no need to specify that the presentation moved to an online format. Online-only conferences use the same template as in-person conferences. (And you still include the conference location.)

Kullgren, K., Carter, B., Caplin, D., Ramirez, L., Williams, S., Marsac, M., Judd-Glossy, L., & Brown, M. (2020, March 19–¬21). Pediatric psychology consultation: State of the art and future directions [Conference workshop]. Society of Pediatric Psychology Annual Conference, Dallas, TX, United States. https://societyofpediatricpsychology.org/node/726


For other style manuals, the format may vary slightly but they will have very similar concepts that can be applied using the above examples.

Want Live Help?

  Call 515-294-3642 during open hours,
     or leave a message.