How To Cite A Newspaper Article

You may use newspaper articles as sources when writing a paper or presenting. Newspaper articles tend to be cited in a different way than articles or books from scholarly publications. Modern Language Association, American Psychological Association and Chicago citations differ in their format. You may also need to change your citation if you are citing an article that is on the website of the newspaper, as opposed to the printed version.

In MLA style, the source of a quotation should be credited

Your bibliographic citation must begin with author's last names. After the last name add the first name of the author. The period should be used to end this part of the citation.

• Example: Kent, Clark.
• If the author is not present, go to the following element.

Write the title (in quotation marks) of the article after the author. Also include any subtitles. Semicolons are used to separate title and subtitle. Use capitalization for nouns as well as verbs. Put a period in quotation marks after the title.

• Example: Kent, Clark. Superman stays away as Gotham is taken over by villains.

Indicate the name in italics of the newspaper that published the article. Identify the newspaper after the name. Use the actual name of newspaper and not website if you've found the article online. If the city of publication is not in the name, add it between square brackets. This part of the citation should be followed by a comma.

• Italics are not used if you put the city between brackets.
• Example: Clark, Kent. "Villains occupy Gotham while Superman remains away." (Metropolis)

Type the date of publication and page number after the name. The page number should be followed by a comma. If the page number is not present, add a period to the date.

• Example: Kent, Clark. "Villains take over Gotham; Superman stays away." Daily Planet  17.07.2017, p.A1.
• If an article is published online but there is no page number, place a period at the end of the publication date.

Indicate where the article was found. If it is an online database of a newspaper, you should italicize its name. If you located the article in the newspaper's online database, please provide the direct URL of the article. Remove the "http ://" portion of the URL. Finish your citation using a comma.

• Database example: Kent, Clark. "Villains take over Gotham; Superman stays away." Daily Planet, Metropolis, 17.07.2017, p.A1. DC News is a source of information.
• Kent, Clark. "Villains take over Gotham; Superman stays away." Metropolis, July 17, 2017, www.dailyplanet.com/superman_spurns_gotham.

Cite the author's name, page number and the title of the paper in the body text. MLA will use parenthetical references to direct your readers to your Works Cited section.

• Example: Kent
• You can put quotation marks around the first words or phrases of the title if no author is listed. Leave out the page number if there's none.

APA

List the authors in order of their byline. Separate them with commas. The last author should be preceded by an "and". The period immediately after the initial is also the closing period for this section.

• Example: Clark, K.
• You can use sentence case to start the bibliographic entry if there is no author. Only capitalize the first word and proper nouns.

After the author's name, place the publication date between parentheses. First type the year of the article and then the comma. Give the month's name in its full form, then the day. Close the brackets and add a period right after.

• Example: Clark K. (2017.07.17).

• After the title, place the date after articles without an author.

Type the title and any subtitle after the date. Only capitalize first words and proper nouns. Add a period, or punctuation, if needed.

• Example: Clark K. Superman is away from Gotham as the villains take control.

After the name, place the section and the page numbers. The page number does not have an italicized font. Add a period to the page. If the page number is not present, as in the case of an article found online, you should place a period following the name.

• Example: Clark K. Superman remains away while villains take control of Gotham. 

Enter the website address or database name, if appropriate. Tell your readers the location of the article starting with "Retrieved form." APA style does not require a direct URL to an article, but only the URL of the newspaper.

• Example from the database: Villains are in control of Gotham while Superman remains away. Daily Planet p.A1. Retrieved by Collected DC News.
• URL Example: Villains are in control of Gotham while Superman remains away. Daily Planet page A1.

When citing a source in your text, APA requires parenthetical citations. APA also calls for a bibliography. If you are quoting a page directly, please include it.

• Example of a paraphrase: (Kent 2017)
• Direct quote example: (Kent, 2017, page A1)

Chicago

Enter the author's last name, followed with a comma. Add a period to the end of an author's last name.

• Example: Kent, Clark.
• If the author is not listed, you can start by placing the name of the paper in italics and then adding a comma. 

In title case, capitalize the nouns as well as verbs. Sub-titles can be included by typing them after a colon. Within the quotations, add a punctuation mark or period to the title.

• Example: Kent, Clark. Superman stays away as the villains take over Gotham.

Place the name in italics of the newspaper. The title of the publication is immediately following the title. The name of a newspaper should be followed by a period.

• Example: Kent, Clark. "Villains occupy Gotham and Superman remains away." Daily Planet.

List the publication date. The month is listed first, followed by the year. A comma should be placed after the date. The article's year of publication should be the last item. Place a period at the end. The year is sufficient if neither the month nor the day are given. Include the most recent date of the article if it is online.

• Example: Kent, Clark. "Villains occupy Gotham and Superman remains away." Daily Planet. Seventeenth of July, 2017.

To copy the URL, you must include the date and time of access. You can also use the full article permalink when you've accessed it online. You can type "accessed" after the URL. Type the month, the day and the year. Put a period at the end of the parentheses.

• Example: Kent, Clark. "Villains occupy Gotham and Superman remains away."  www.dailyplanet.com/superman_spurns_gotham (accessed July 19, 2017).

The author's last name should be written in reverse order. Use commas as a separator for footnotes. Chicago Style dictates that you place a note at the end of your text if you quote or paraphrase an original source. This format is very similar to that of a bibliography, but you must type the first name of the author before the last name. The citation is also separated by commas, not periods.

• Example: Clark Kent, "Villains Take Over Gotham; Superman Stays Away,"  www.dailyplanet.com/superman_spurns_gotham (accessed July 19, 2017).
• Use a shortened footnote after you've cited an article in the footnote of your paper. The author's name and a shortened version in quotations of the article title are used to create the shortened form. Example: Kent, "VillainsTake Over."