Q. Here’s a funny question. How do you treat a source where the author name or pseudonym is the same as the name of the website or blog? Is there a way to eliminate repetition from the entries below?
Mercer, Ilana. 2017. “Article Title.” IlanaMercer.com. August 1.
Bionic Mosquito. 2015a. “Blog Post Title.” Bionic Mosquito, August 5.
Thank you!
A. Your first author-date reference list entry, for the Mercer article, is fine as is. It’s clear that a URL featuring the author’s name must be the author’s website. It also happens to reflect the website’s copyright line: “© 2008-2025 ILANAMERCER.com”; applying caps to only the I and M (domain names aren’t case sensitive) increases legibility.
Your second entry is also fine as is. Most readers would figure out that the italics for the second instance of Bionic Mosquito mean that it’s a title rather than an author or publisher. But you can help readers out a little with one or two clarifications:
Bionic Mosquito [pseud.]. 2015a. “Blog Post Title.” Bionic Mosquito (blog), August 5.
We’d recommend adding that first one—which clarifies that “Bionic Mosquito” is a pseudonym (the square brackets show that it’s an editor’s interpolation). The parenthetical description “(blog)” is less important to include but could be helpful for an audience that may not know the source material. In both cases, include a full URL at the end of the citation—or, in published form, provide a link from the title or elsewhere. See also CMOS 13.6, 13.82, and 14.105.