How to Cite a Newspaper in Oxford Referencing

Amid the celebrity gossip and angry opinion pieces, newspapers sometimes report on important things. Things one might write an academic paper about, for example. You might even need to cite a newspaper article at times.

But how do you do this in Oxford referencing? Check out our guide below to make sure you get footnote citations and the bibliography entry right.

How to Cite a Newspaper Article in Footnotes

The exact rules for citing a newspaper article may vary between universities, so make sure to check your style guide. However, most versions of Oxford referencing use a format like this:

^n. Initial(s). Surname, ‘Title of article’, Title of Newspaper, Section of Newspaper (if applicable), date of publication, page number(s).

The first footnote citation of a newspaper article would thus look like this:

^1. C. Cummins, ‘Lecturer fires up on LinkedIn after being faced with empty classroom’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 July 2017, p. 42.

If you have accessed a newspaper article online, give a URL and date of access instead of a page number in the footnote. For instance:

^2. P. Hawker, ‘Teen movies: familiar tropes of school, detention, love and growing up’, The Australian, 8 July 2017, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/teen-movies-familiar-tropes-of-school-detention-love-and-growing-up/news-story/23ad53ec8d84b34de4d1d46c5af232f9, accessed 3 August 2019.

And, as with any source in Oxford referencing, you can use a shortened footnote format for repeat citations (usually, just the author’s surname and a page number). This will save you from repeating the full source information every time you cite the same article.

Newspaper Articles in an Oxford Bibliography

As well as citing newspaper articles in footnotes, you need to list them in a bibliography at the end of your document. This should include every source you cite, with full publication information.

The format here is similar to the first footnote. The only differences are that:

1. You should give the author’s surname before their initial.
2. You should include a full page range for print articles, not just a pinpoint citation (for online articles, give a URL and date of access instead).

As such, the standard bibliography format for a newspaper article is:

Surname, Initial(s)., ‘Title of article’, Title of Newspaper, Section of Newspaper (if applicable), date of publication, page range.

In practice, then, you would list the articles we cited above as follows:

Cummins, C., ‘Lecturer fires up on LinkedIn after being faced with empty classroom’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 July 2017, pp. 42-43.

Hawker, P., ‘Teen movies: familiar tropes of school, detention, love and growing up’, The Australian, 8 July 2017, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/teen-movies-familiar-tropes-of-school-detention-love-and-growing-up/news-story/23ad53ec8d84b34de4d1d46c5af232f9, accessed 3 August 2017.

If you come across a newspaper article without a named author, you can use the article title in the first position in footnotes and the bibliography instead. However, this may depend on the version of Oxford referencing you’re using, so make sure to check your style guide. And if you’d like an expert to check your writing, we have proofreaders ready to help.