Citing Sources from a Professional Journal

For information on citing URL's, see this link.
For more information on MLA format, try this link.

 

MLA (Modern Language Association) Format

Sentence 1: Author's name

Sentence 2: Title of article.

Sentence 3: Publication and location information. This includes:

Journal title

Volume

Year

Pages

That is, a citation looks like this:

Author's name. "Title of Article" . Publication and location information .

 

 

Details

Author

Type the author's name in this order: Last name, first name, initial.

Examples:

Springsteen, Bruce X. (1 name)

Smith, Joanne and Paul Robinson. (2 names)

Spratt, John, Tom Thumb, and Bruce X. Springsteen. (3 names) For multiple authors, only the first author's name is reversed.

Title

Type the full title of the article. Put it in quotation marks. Note that the period at the end of this "sentence" goes inside the quotation marks.

Journal

Type the journal's name. Use the full name, not the abbreviation you found in your research. Italicize it or underline it.

Volume

Type the volume number of the journal. There are two kinds of volume numbers:

  1. Volume without the issue number. Journals with continuous pagination (Starts with page 1 in January; pages go up in every installment of the journal for the whole year. Each year has one and only one page 1.) have a single volume number for the whole year.
  2. Volume with the issue number. Journals with separate pagination (Starts with page 1 in January; every new installment of the journal for the whole year starts over with page 1 again. Each year has several page 1's.) have a volume and issue number for the whole year.

In this case, add the issue number to the volume number with a “decimal point,” like this: 143.3

Year

Type the year of publication. Use four digits. Put it in parentheses, and follow with a colon before the page number.

Pages

Put the first page and the last page, separated by a hyphen. If the article is discontinuous, put commas between discontinuous pages.

Examples:

11-52

14-16, 27-29 (article discontinuous)

 

Examples of a three-sentence citation:
Springsteen, Bruce X. "My Life in Asbery Park." Journal of New Jersey Studies 77 (1968): 23-52.

Spears, Britney. “Child Care: How to Do It Right.” American Journal of Pop Star Wisdom 128.2 (2008): 12-15.