Author:
Morris Wright
Date Of Creation:
28 April 2021
Update Date:
1 July 2024
Content
If you're writing a research article, you may want to use news articles you find online as a source. If you are using the American Psychological Association (APA) citation method, you must include an in-text citation and a reference in the reference list at the end of your paper. In general, these entries should contain enough information so that your readers can find the article you used in writing your paper. For an online news article, this means that you include the URL of the story in your reference list.
To step
Method 1 of 2: Formatting your reference list
Start your listing with the author's last name. The author of an online news article is usually listed under the heading, although it can sometimes be at the bottom of the article. Format the name by typing the last name first, followed by a comma and then the author's first initial. Add a middle initial if one is indicated. - Example: Alpert, A.
- If there are multiple authors, separate their names with commas, and use an ampersand (&) before the last author's name.
- If no individual author is listed, skip this element and start your listing with the title of the article.
Include the date the article was published or last updated. Look for the date of publication at the top of the article, below the heading. Put the date in parentheses, starting with the year. Place a comma after the year, then indicate the month and day the article was published (if available). Do not use an abbreviation for the month. Put a period after the last parentheses. - Example: Alpert, A. (2019, February 20).
Type the title and subtitle of the article in lower case. After the date of publication, type the title of the article, capitalizing only the first word and any proper names. If there is a subtitle, put a colon after the title and then type the subtitle, using the same capitalization. Put a period at the end. - Example: Alpert, A. (2019, February 20). Living the good-enough life: The desire for greatness can be an obstacle to our own potential.
Add the name of the newspaper or website. After the title, type in italics the name of the newspaper or website where you found the article. Use capital letters and a capital letter for the first word and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs in the name. Put a period at the end. - Example: Alpert, A. (2019, February 20). Living the good-enough life: The desire for greatness can be an obstacle to our own potential. The New York Times.
End with the URL of the article. After the title of the newspaper or website, type the words "Obtained from" followed by the URL. APA recommends using the homepage of the website or newspaper in most cases, so that you avoid the chance of non-working URLs. Do not put a period at the end of the URL. - Example: Alpert, A. (2019, February 20). Living the good-enough life: The desire for greatness can be an obstacle to our own potential. The New York Times. Obtained from https://www.nytimes.com
Format of the source list:
Author, A.A. (year, month, day). Title of the article in capital letters: Subtitle of the article in capital letters. Title of newspaper or website in capital letters. From URL
Method 2 of 2: Include citations in the text
Please include the author's name and year of publication when paraphrasing. In general, you will need a parenthetical quote at the end of any sentence paraphrasing information from a news article. Format your quote by typing the author's last name followed by a comma, then the year the article was published. Place your quote in parentheses within the closing punctuation of the sentence. - For example, you could write: The idea that striving for greatness may not be the best goal for humanity goes through hundreds of years of philosophy (Alpert, 2019).
Tip:' APA style requires a parenthetical quote at the end of each sentence paraphrasing a source. The only exception would be a multi-sentence block quote from the same source. In that case, the citation in brackets will appear at the end of the citation.
If the article has no author, use the first few words of the title. If no individual author is named for a news article, include the first few words of the title in your parenthesis quote, in double quotes. Use capital letters in the title. Place a comma inside the double quotation marks, and then type the year the article was published. - For example, suppose one of your sources was an article from The Universal Post entitled "How reporters at De Wereldpost traced the rise of fentanyl." This article has no individual author - it is simply attributed to "contributors". If you are paraphrasing or quoting the article in your text, your text quote could read: ("How reporters from De Wereldpost," 2018).
Add a page or paragraph number for direct quotes. To create an in-text citation for a direct quote, refer your readers to the exact location of that material. For online news articles that are not paginated, count the paragraphs. Type a comma after the year of publication, then type the abbreviation "al." Followed by the paragraph number. - For example, you could write, A "good-enough" relationship with nature implies that "we recognize both the abundance and the limitations of the planet that we share with an infinite number of other life forms" (Alpert, 2019, al. 7).
Omit information that is already in the body of your paper. If you include the author's name in the body of your paper, you don't have to repeat the author's name in a parenthesis quote. Instead, put the year in parentheses after the author's name. If you've included both the author's name and year of publication in the body of your paper, you don't need a parenthesis quote at all for paraphrased material. - If you name the author in the text and quote the article directly, add a right-angle quote after the quote with the page number or paragraph containing the quoted material.
- For articles without an individual author, a full parenthesis quote is not necessary if you include the title of the article in the body of your paper. As with the author's name, simply put the year the article was published in parentheses immediately after the article title.
