There may be times when you need to cite a newspaper article in an essay, such as when writing about the media or discussing something that was in the news. However, depending on the referencing system, the rules for this can be confusing. In this post, we’re looking at how to cite a newspaper article using APA referencing (7th edition).
When an article in a newspaper has a named author, the rules for in-text citations are the same as for any other source in APA referencing. This means you should give the author’s surname and year of publication in parentheses:
The judges refused to pick a winner in protest at increasing rent prices (Packham, 2016).
If the author is named in the text, this information shouldn’t be duplicated in the citation.
If an article doesn’t have a named author, you can still cite it by using shortened version of the article name in the citation. For example:
Some supermarkets are now trialling a paperless till system (‘Need a Receipt?’, 2016).
However, most of the time an article will have a named author even if it’s hard to spot, so make sure to check carefully.
If quoting a print newspaper article, citations should also include relevant page numbers. When the author’s name isn’t in the text, the whole citation comes after the quotation:
The decision followed ‘a series of university rent strikes’ (Packham, 2016, p. 32).
When the author is named in the text, the year of publication should be given immediately afterwards, with the page numbers in parentheses following the quoted text:
According to Packham (2016), this followed ‘a series of university rent strikes’ (p. 32).
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Since no page numbers will be available for online newspaper articles, you should use a paragraph number to show where quoted text has been taken from instead:
The judges complained that many students could not even afford the ‘cheapest rooms’ at some institutions (Packham, 2016, para. 8).
When putting together an APA reference list, the format to use for a print newspaper article with a named author is as follows:
Author surname, Initial(s). (Year, month and day published). Article title. Newspaper, page numbers.
In practice, this would look something like the following:
Packham, A. (2016, October 25). Angry student judges refuse to pick winner of accommodation awards. The Guardian, pp. 32-33.
For the online version of an article, a URL should be given instead of a page range:
Packham, A. (2016, October 25). Angry student judges refuse to pick winner of accommodation awards. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/oct/25/angry-student-judges-refuse-to-pick-winner-of-accommodation-awards
Finally, if a newspaper article doesn’t have a named author, the title moves up to the first position in the reference:
Need a receipt? Tesco trials paperless till system. (2016, October 25). The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/25/need-a-receipt-tesco-trials-paperless-till-system
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