How to Cite a Newspaper Article With No Author

The Modern Language Association's style guide and the American Psychological Association's style guide contain two of the most common citation formats. The MLA style is primarily used in the humanities for citing and formatting papers whereas the APA style is used primarily in the social sciences. In addition, the Chicago Manual of Style uses a format similar to both the MLA and APA. Regardless of the style you have to use, the goal of following a style guide is to give proper credit to the sources you use and allow readers the ability to find and verify those sources if they are interested.

MLA Style

Cite the newspaper article in MLA style starting with the title of the article. If there is no author name, begin with the title of the article in title case and in quotes with a period at the end, inside the quotes.

Add the newspaper name in italics followed by the date of publication with day first, then month, then year and add a comma.

Add the edition and section number, if applicable, followed by a colon.

Add page numbers and a period.

Add the medium of publication. If the article is from an online newspaper, use the word "Web" instead of the word "Print." Your complete citation might look like this:

"Africa Day Celebrated in Havana." Granma International 31 May 2009, English ed.: 16. Print.

APA Style

Cite the newspaper article in APA style starting with the title of the article. Begin the citation with the name of the article in sentence case, ending with a period.

Add the date of publication in parentheses, starting with the year, then the month and day. Add a period after the closing parenthesis.

Add the name of the newspaper in italics, followed by a comma. Add the abbreviation "p." or "pp." and the page numbers. Your complete citation might look like this:

As prices surge, Thailand pitches OPEC-style rice cartel. (2008, May 5). The Wall Street Journal, p. A9.

Cite an online newspaper article in APA format the same way you would a print source but add the words, "Retrieved from" followed by the URL of the home page of the newspaper. APA suggests to add the home page instead of a link directly to the article to avoid broken URLs. Note that the URL must begin with "http://." For example:

Chicago Manual of Style

Cite the newspaper article in Chicago Manual of Style using the title of the article first. The title should be in title case, followed by a comma and enclosed in quotes.

Add the name of the newspaper and where it is published, if the publisher is a smaller, unknown publisher. Add a comma after the publisher name.

Add the date of publication in the month, day, year format. Your complete citation might look like this:

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