Breaking news! Even people who know the basics of MLA referencing struggle with unusual source types, such as citing a newspaper article. Crucial marks lost on essays. Stock markets reeling as a result.
OK, that’s not actually news. Referencing sources has been tricky since the first time someone asked ‘where did you get this information?’ But worry not! Our guide to citing a newspaper article in MLA referencing makes it simple.
When citing a print newspaper article, MLA citations should include the author’s surname and a page number (or page range if citing multiple pages).
Keep in mind, though, that some newspapers use a letter + number style for page numbers. As such, citing a print newspaper article could look like this:
The festival was ‘a gathering of local and international writers’ (Romei C6).
Of course, you can also get your news online these days, and the internet doesn’t have page numbers. If you’re using an online article, then, you only need to cite the author’s name. For instance:
Harrington is quoted warning that ‘not all stores’ will withstand the competition (Cummins).
As usual in MLA referencing, citations change slightly when you’re referencing two sources by the same author. In this case, you will need to use the article title in place of an author’s name in citations.
Full publication detail for cited sources is given in a Works Cited list at the end of your document. The basic format for a print newspaper article here is:
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Surname, First Name. ‘Title of Article’. Title of Newspaper, Day Month and Year of Publication, page number(s).
We would list the print article cited above, for example, as follows:
Romei, Stephen. ‘Awful Apostrophes and Other Grammatical Gangsters’. The Australian, 10 June 2017, pp. C5-C6.
For online newspaper articles, meanwhile, the basic ‘Works Cited’ list format is the same except for including a URL in place of page numbers:
Surname, First Name. ‘Title of Article’. Title of Newspaper, Day Month and Year of Publication, URL.
In practice, then, the entry for an online article would look like this:
Cummins, Carolyn. ‘Amazon in Australia: Internet Giant Will Be a Friend and a Foe, Retailers Warn’. The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 June 2017, http://www.smh.com.au/business/property/amazon-will-be-a-friend-and-a-foe-retailers-warn-20170608-gwndy5.html.
With that, you should be all set to start citing newspapers! And if you’d like someone to check the referencing in a document, we’re here to help.
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