Newspapers and magazines aren’t the most common sources in academic writing. Nevertheless, you may need to cite a magazine or newspaper article when writing about something that has been in the media (or when analysing the media itself). As such, we’re looking at how to cite a newspaper article or magazine in Harvard referencing.
In-Text Citations
As with most source types, Harvard referencing uses a standard author–date format for in-text citations of magazines and newspapers.
The important thing here is to check whether the article has a named author. If it does, use the author’s name in your citation alongside the year of publication. If it’s a print version of the article and you’re quoting it directly, you should also provide relevant page numbers:
Leicester’s season was ‘hailed as a sporting miracle’ (Wagg, 2016, p. 20).
If the article has no named author, simply use the newspaper/magazine’s name instead:
A Yorkshire terrier called Eddie was reunited with his owners after being missing for five years, despite living only half a mile away (The Guardian, 2016).
As you can see, we’ve picked the most hard-hitting news story we could find to use as an example in this post.
Reference List
If you’ve cited a print version of a magazine or newspaper article, the information required in the reference list is as follows (if no author is named, as above, use the magazine/newspaper title):
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Surname, Initial(s). (Year) ‘Title of Article’, Title of Newspaper/Magazine, issue number (if applicable), day and/or month of publication, page number(s).
The Wagg article in the example above would therefore appear as:
Wagg, S. (2016) ‘Under No Illusions’, When Saturday Comes, 352, June, pp. 20-21.
For online articles, the format is similar but with a URL and date of access given in place of page numbers:
Surname, Initial(s). (Year) ‘Title of Article’, Title of Newspaper/Magazine, issue number (if applicable), day and/or month of publication [Online]. Available at URL [Accessed date].
The Guardian article above would therefore appear in the reference list as:
The Guardian (2016) ‘Missing dog found half a mile from owners’ home after five years’, The Guardian, 20 May [Online]. Available at http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/20/missing-dog-found-five-years-yorkshire-terrier-eddie-microchip [Accessed 24 June 2016].