How to Cite a Newspaper Article in Text

Writing is an integral part of any educational process. Students usually have to complete numerous tasks, which have a number of requirements. However, absence of plagiarism is one of the basic rules. If you were tasked to write a paper with an APA citation of a newspaper article but you do not know how to do it, the information below will be especially useful for you. We have tried to gather some rare and complicated cases to help you arrange your sources in an appropriate way.

How to Cite a Newspaper Article in an Essay

If students have to cite a newspaper article, they should know the basic rules. First of all, each student should define the article he/she wants to use in the paper. One can either go to the library to find a printed version of the newspaper or search online. No matter which version students decide to use, the quality of the source is what matters. Secondly, students should know what information they need from the article to cite it properly. Thirdly, prior to citing the information, students should find out which citation style they need to use, since there are many of them and each citation style provides the information on how to cite a newspaper article in an essay. This article highlights clear explanation of how to reference newspaper articles in different citation styles.

How to Cite a Newspaper Article in APA

It is not a problem to find how to reference a newspaper article in APA style if all the information is available. In this case, students should follow the standard format, the author, the date in parenthesis, the title of the article (without quotation marks, with only the first word capitalized), the title of the article with every notional word capitalized in italics, and the page where the article is located. For example:

Spayd, L., & Gershkovich, E. (2017, March 31). Friday mailbag: Reforming the use of ‘reform’. The New York Times, A1.

However, when it comes to cases when some data is missing, problems appear. Here is the example of how to cite a newspaper article APA with no author. If you use a printed version, you should first identify the title of the article; use the sentence format of capitalization and a period after it. Then, you should put the year and the date when the article was published in parenthesis. After the period, you should put the title of the newspaper with each notional word capitalized in italics. The page should follow the coma. For example:

U.S. increasingly sees Iran’s hand in the arming of Bahraini militants. (2017, April 1). The New York Times, A2.

Citing an online newspaper article in APA, you should remember that the page number is omitted in this case. Actually, this type of reference includes “retrieved from” after the title of the newspaper. Note, please, that in this case coma comes after the title of the newspaper and the phrase “retrieved from” begins a new sentence. The link should be inactive (delete the hyperlink if you happen to insert it as an active link in your essay). For example:

Grady, D. (2016, December 23). How to find clinical trials for experimental cancer treatments. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/health/how-to-find-clinical-trials-for-experimental-cancer-treatments.html?rref=collection%2Fseriescollection%2Fimmunotherapy

If you have found a perfect article, but it does not have a date, it is not a problem. You can use the abbreviation “n.d.” for APA newspaper article citation. For example:

Grady, D. (n.d.). In cancer trials, minorities face extra hurdles. The New York Times, C1.

In text citation for a newspaper article should not bother you as well, since the examples below will help you avoid any issues. If you paraphrase the information, the format of the citation of an APA newspaper article in text will be the same for printed and online version. For example: (Grady, 2016) or (Grady, n.d.). However, if you use a direct quote, you should put the page number in your in-text citation; for example: (Spayd & Gershkovich, 2017, p. A1). Pay attention that if we have two authors, we do not put a coma before & in the text, contrary to the presence of a coma before & on the reference page. In case you use in-text citation for an APA format online newspaper article, no page is presupposed. So, you should just site it as (Grady, 2016). No need to put the number of the paragraph or any other unnecessary information.

Important: if you cite an article without the author in the text, you should use quotation marks. Also, there is no need to use the whole title, just some meaningful part in the beginning, (“U.S. increasingly sees Iran’s hand,” 2017).

How to Cite a Newspaper Article in MLA

The basic format for MLA citation of a newspaper article is as follows: the author, the title of the article in quotation marks with all the notional works capitalized, the title of the article in italics with all the notional words capitalized, the date of publication, and a page/pages. Pay attention that the first author’s name is written in full. Each of the elements preceding the article title is separated by the period. In this case, the period after the article title is put inside the quotation marks. After the article title you should use commas. In APA format, the page number is not supported with any additional elements, but in MLA, you should use “p.” before the page number or “pp.” is you have a range of page numbers. For example:

Khan, Shehab. “UK Citizens Who Fight in Israeli Army Should Be Prosecuted, Baroness Warsi Says.” Independent, 31 Mar. 2017, p. A1.

If you have two authors in a newspaper article, you should write the author’s last name first, put a comma, and use the author’s full first name. The second author should follow after “and” and should start with the first name, followed by the last name. Check this example to see how it works:

Baker, Neal and Stephen Moyes. “Put Your Man Pants on, Nigel.” The Scottish Sun, 2 Apr. 2017, p. A4.

Like in APA format, a newspaper article without an author should start with the title in the quotation marks. Actually, no other changes are needed; the rest of the information will remain the same. Thus, if the previous article did not contain an author, it would be cited as follows:

“UK Citizens Who Fight in Israeli Army Should Be Prosecuted, Baroness Warsi Says.” Independent, 31 Mar. 2017, p. A1.

If your newspaper article is without the date, no need to put “n.d.” or any other placeholder, just cite the article in MLA as if this data is never written.

Duguid, Kevin. “200 Jobs Cop It.” The Scottish Sun, www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/809844/police-scotland-plan-axe-jobs/. Accessed 2 April 2017.

The recent edition of MLA style requires the use of the URL in case of referring to the online newspaper article. Online articles do not require anything special except for the URL itself. It is always better to use permalink. If you use URL, do not write https:// in the reference. For example:

Farand, Chloe. “Court Case Ruling May Allow Britons to Keep Their EU Citizenship and Rights.” Independent, 1 Apr. 2017, www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/court-case-british-keep-eu-citizenship-rights-brexit-ireland-good-law-project-a7661476.html. Accessed 2 April 2017.

Formatting MLA in text citation of a newspaper article will be easy if you check our recommendations. Thus, the basic format for referencing an article in the text is as follows: (Khan A1). If you have two authors, list them both in the following way: (Baker and Moyes A1). Do not put any punctuation marks between the author and the page number.

An in text citation of an MLA online newspaper article should be cited in the following way: (Farand). You cannot put any page since you do not have the one. At the same time, you should not use the number of paragraphs or any other data found in your online newspaper article. In-text citation for the article without the author should have the format (“UK Citizens” A1).

We have tried to find the most commonly used and at the same time some special cases of citing a newspaper in MLA and APA format. We hope the examples provided here will help format your papers better and it will not be a disaster for you anymore. Enjoy writing, avoid plagiarism, and be happy with high grades!