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Citing Sources: Newspaper Articles

How Do I Know If It's a Newspaper?

Not sure whether your article is from a newspaper? Look for these characteristics:

  • Main purpose is to provide readers with a brief account of current events locally, nationally or internationally.
  • Can be published daily, semiweekly or weekly.
  • Articles are usually written by journalists who may or may not have subject expertise.
  • Written for the general public, readers don't need any previous subject knowledge.
  • Little, if any, information about other sources is provided.

Tips

Author

If an item has no author, start the citation with the article title.

If, and only if, the article is signed "Anonymous", put the word Anonymous where you would normally place the author's name.

Titles

Italicize titles of journals, magazines and newspapers. Do not italicize the titles of articles.

Capitalize only the first letter of the first word of the article title. If there is a colon in the article title, also capitalize the first letter of the first word after the colon.

Dates

If an item has no date, use the short form n.d. where you would normally put the date.

Page Numbers

If an article has no page numbers provided, leave that part of the citation out in the References List.

If an article doesn't appear on continuous pages, list all the page numbers the article is on, separated by commas. For example (4, 6, 12-14)

Newspaper Article From a Library Database

Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication, Month Day if Given). Title of article: Subtitle if any. Name of Newspaper, SectionPage if given.

Example

Alphonso, C. (2020, February 20). Canada should spend more on early childhood education, new report says. The Globe and Mail, A7. 

Note: If an article ends with a question mark (?) or exclamation point (!), you do not need to add a period to mark the end of the title. 
In-Text Paraphrase (Alphonso, 2020)
In-Text Quote

(Alphonso, 2020, A7)

Newspaper Article From a Website

Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication, Month Day if Given). Title of article: Subtitle if any.Name of Newspaper, SectionPage if given. URL

Note: See Article on a News Website for articles from online-only news sources (e.g. BBC News, Huffpost, CNN, Salon). 

Example

Henry, M. (2020, January 17). Health Canada seizes products that may pose ‘serious health risks’ from Etobicoke beauty store after Star investigation. Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2020/01/17/health-canada-seizes-products-from-etobicoke-beauty-store-following-star-investigation.html

Note: This entry has no page numbers, so this information is left out of the citation.
In-Text Paraphrase (Henry, 2020)
In-Text Quote

(Henry, 2020)

Note: This entry has no page numbers, paragraph numbers or section headings so this information is left out of the in-text citation. 

Newspaper Article In Print

Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication, Month Day if Given). Name of Newspaper, SectionPage.

Example

Aulakh, R. (2012, June 13). From surviving to thriving.  Toronto Star, GT1, GT4.

In-Text Paraphrase (Aulakh, 2012)
In-Text Quote

(Aulakh, 2012, GT1)

Newspaper Article with an Unknown Author

Title of article: Subtitle if any. (Year of Publication, Month Day if Given). Name of Newspaper, SectionPage if given. 

Note: If instead of having no author, the article is signed as being written by "Anonymous", put the name "Anonymous" where you would normally put the author's name. Only use the word Anonymous if the article is specifically credited that way.

Example

Air Canada jet makes emergency landing: Toronto-bound Boeing 767 safe in Madrid. (2020, February 4). National Post, A3.
In-Text Paraphrase

("Air Canada Jet Makes Emergency Landing," 2020)

Note: Use double quotation marks around the title in the in-text citation. Capitalize the title using title case, although the reference list citation should be written in sentence case. If the article title is long, shorten it for the in-text citation. 
In-Text Quote

("Air Canada Jet Makes Emergency Landing," 2020, A3)

Note: Use double quotation marks around the title in the in-text citation. Capitalize the title using title case, although the reference list citation should be written in sentence case. If the article title is long, shorten it for the in-text citation.