Citelle · Library
Publication dates and access dates
Enter a publication date only as precisely as the source gives it, keep the access date separate, and see which dates the workbench rejects.
Two dates, two events
A publication date belongs to the source; an access date records when you looked at it. Keep them in separate fields. The first table above holds the author, title, site and URL fixed and changes only the precision of the publication date: with year, month and day the APA webpage entry shows 2024, June 1; with year and month it shows 2024, June; with the year alone it shows 2024. A complete-looking entry should not hide that one source gave less detail than another.
Dates the workbench will not accept
The second table lists three rejected cases. Without a publication year, the entry is held with Publication date: provide the source information; in this version of the workbench every source kind needs a year, so it has no form for undated works. An impossible date, such as 29 February 2023, is rejected with Publication date: review this source detail. For IEEE and NLM webpages, the access date must have a year, a month and a day; a year and month alone give Access date: provide the source information. These are limits of this workbench, not rules for every style.
Entering dates without inventing them
- Type only what the source prints. If it gives 2024, leave Publication month, if supplied and Publication day, if supplied empty.
- Do not use 1 January as a stand-in for an unknown month and day.
- A day without a month is not accepted, because a day has no meaning on its own.
- Use the day you actually consulted the page as the access date; the example's 26 October 2026 is invented.
- Keep an update date apart from the original publication date unless your source and guidance say to use it.
Dates in the Citelle app
The app's Edit source screen has Year, Month and Day boxes for the publication date and a separate Accessed line with a date picker. Choosing the Web page type fills Accessed with today's date. Unlike the workbench, the app formats sources without a year, writing n.d. in APA and Chicago author-date. Several of its styles, including MLA and IEEE webpages, use today's date when no access date is set, so replace it with the real day of your visit.
What neither tool can tell you
The workbench does not look up a date online, and it cannot tell which version of a changing page you saw. Find the date on the page itself, then check how the selected style displays it before you copy the entry.
Three explicit publication-date precisions
These invented webpage examples keep the author, title, site and URL fixed. Only the supplied publication-date precision changes. Each displayed result is checked against a separately written reviewed example.
| Supplied publication date | Returned APA webpage reference |
|---|---|
| {"year":2024,"month":6,"day":1} | Stone, M. (2024, June 1). A sample web page. Sample Library. https://example.org/sample-page |
| {"year":2024,"month":6} | Stone, M. (2024, June). A sample web page. Sample Library. https://example.org/sample-page |
| {"year":2024} | Stone, M. (2024). A sample web page. Sample Library. https://example.org/sample-page |
Keep invalid and unavailable dates distinct
| Example | Workbench accepted it | Field needing review |
|---|---|---|
| missing-publication-date | false | date |
| invalid-february-date | false | date |
| incomplete-access-date | false | accessed |
The workbench rejects an absent publication date for these reviewed cases and rejects 29 February 2023 as a date. In the IEEE webpage case it also requires a complete access date; a supplied year and month alone does not pass that field check. Those behaviors describe this workbench’s reviewed scope, not every possible style rule for undated works.
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Next guide: DOI and URL in a reference