How to Write Bibliographic Citations for Journal Articles

Writing bibliographic citations for journal articles at the end of your research paper is, of course, different from writing citations for books and other media. If you truly want to master the art of citing journal articles, however, you must learn to distinguish the American Psychological Association, or APA, bibliographic style and format from the Modern Language Association, or MLA, bibliographic style and format.

Things You'll Need

  • Journal publications
  • Google Scholar
  • "Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition"
  • "Modern Language Association Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th Edition"
Show More

Instructions

  1. APA-Style Bibliographic Citations

    • 1

      Write the last name and initialized first name of a journal article's author.

      Examples: Mitka, M.

      Freeman, W.L.

    • 2

      Write your bibliographic citation if the journal article you chose has between two and seven authors as follows:

      "Author's Last Name, Author's Initialized First Name," "Author's Last Name, Author's Initialized First Name," etc.

      Examples: Gostin, L.O., & Kim, S.C.

      Rider, L.G., Miller, F.W., Penson, D.F., & Brook, R.H.

      If the journal article you chose has more than eight authors, write the first six authors of the article, followed by the last author.

      Example: Goldman, S., Sethi, G.K., Holman, W., Thai, H., McFalls, E., Ward, H.B., . . . Lee, K.

    • 3

      Write the year of a journal article's initial publication in parentheses.

      Then, write the journal article's title.

      Example: Jordan, P.J., & Troth, A.C. (2004). Managing Emotions during Team Problem Solving.

    • 4

      Write the title of the journal you retrieved a specific article from, as well as the journal's volume number. Make sure both of these citations are written in italics.

      Example: Tseng, H.F., Smith, N., Harpaz, R., Bialek, S.R., Sy, L.S., & Jacobsen, S.J. (2011). Herpes Zoster Vaccine in Older Adults and the Risk of Subsequent Herpes Zoster Disease. Journal of the American Medical Association, 305.

    • 5

      Write the issue number of the journal you retrieved a specific article from, as well as the page number(s) in which that article is located. Make sure both of these citations are written in parentheses, but not in italics.

      Example: Tseng, H.F., Smith, N., Harpaz, R., Bialek, S.R., Sy, L.S., & Jacobsen, S.J. (2011). Herpes Zoster Vaccine in Older Adults and the Risk of Subsequent Herpes Zoster Disease. Journal of the American Medical Association, 305(2), 160-166.

    • 6

      Write your article's unique Digital Object Identifier (doi) if the article you retrieved from a particular journal was retrieved in an electronic format, but not directly from the journal's website.

      Example: Tseng, H.F., Smith, N., Harpaz, R., Bialek, S.R., Sy, L.S., & Jacobsen, S.J. (2011). Herpes Zoster Vaccine in Older Adults and the Risk of Subsequent Herpes Zoster Disease. Journal of the American Medical Association, 305(2), 160-166. doi: 10.1001/jama.2010.1983.

    • 7

      Write the article's Uniform Resource Locator if the article you retrieved from a particular journal was retrieved directly from the journal's website. In addition, write the date in which you retrieved that article in parentheses next to the article's author(s).

      Example: Tseng, H.F., Smith, N., Harpaz, R., Bialek, S.R., Sy, L.S., & Jacobsen, S.J. (2011, January 12). Herpes Zoster Vaccine in Older Adults and the Risk of Subsequent Herpes Zoster Disease. Journal of the American Medical Association, 305(2), 160-166. Retrieved from http://jama.ama-assn.org/.

    MLA-Style Bibliographic Citations

    • 8

      At the very beginning of your bibliographic citation, write the last name and first name of a journal article's author.

      Examples: Mitka, Michael.

      Freeman, William L.

    • 9

      Write the article's title. Bbegin and end it with quotation marks.

      Example: Munde, Gail. "Considerations for Managing an Increasingly Intergenerational Workforce in Libraries."

    • 10

      Write the title of the journal you retrieved a specific article from in italics.

      Example: Munde, Gail. "Considerations for Managing an Increasingly Intergenerational Workforce in Libraries." Library Trends.

    • 11

      Write the volume and the issue number of the journal you retrieved a specific article from. Make sure you do not use italics.

      Example: Munde, Gail. "Considerations for Managing an Increasingly Intergenerational Workforce in Libraries." Library Trends 59.1-2.

    • 12

      Write the year of a journal article's initial publication in parentheses.

      Example: Munde, Gail. "Considerations for Managing an Increasingly Intergenerational Workforce in Libraries." Library Trends 59.1-2 (2010).

    • 13

      Write the page number(s) in which a journal article you chose was located on next to that article's year of initial publication.

      Example: Munde, Gail. "Considerations for Managing an Increasingly Intergenerational Workforce in Libraries ." Library Trends 59.1-2 (2010): 88-108.

    • 14

      Write the date in which you retrieved a journal article at the end of your citation if that article was retrieved in an electronic format.

      Example: Munde, Gail. "Considerations for Managing an Increasingly Intergenerational Workforce in Libraries ." Library Trends 59.1-2 (2010): 88-108. Web. 13 Jan. 2011.

Learnify Hub © www.0685.com All Rights Reserved