To cite a journal article, record the authors, year, article title, journal name, volume, issue, page range and DOI, then arrange them in your required style. Every style uses the same details; only the order and punctuation change.
This page shows one real article cited in APA 7th, MLA 9th, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver and IEEE, with in-text citations for each. Always follow your institution's version if it differs.
The Six Details Every Journal Reference Needs
- Authors: every name, in the order printed on the article.
- Year: the year of publication.
- Article title: including any subtitle.
- Journal title: in full, or abbreviated for Vancouver and IEEE.
- Volume, issue and pages: the article's first and last page.
- DOI: the permanent identifier, if the article has one.
Where to Find the Details
The first page of the article PDF usually shows the journal name, volume, issue, year, pages and DOI, often in the header or footer. The journal's web page for the article lists the same details and often offers a "cite" button.
Check exported citations against the article itself. Databases sometimes get capitalization, author names or page numbers wrong.
The example used throughout this page is: Nicholas Bloom, James Liang, John Roberts and Zhichun Jenny Ying, "Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment", The Quarterly Journal of Economics, volume 130, issue 1, 2015, pages 165 to 218, DOI 10.1093/qje/qju032.
APA 7th Edition
APA puts the year after the authors, uses sentence case for the article title, italicizes the journal name and volume, and ends with the DOI as a link. List up to 20 authors.
Bloom, N., Liang, J., Roberts, J., & Ying, Z. J. (2015). Does working from home work? Evidence from a Chinese experiment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(1), 165–218. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qju032
In-text: (Bloom et al., 2015) or, for a quotation, (Bloom et al., 2015, p. 170). With three or more authors, APA uses "et al." from the first citation.
MLA 9th Edition
MLA puts the article title in quotation marks and title case, italicizes the journal and labels the volume, issue and pages. With three or more authors, give the first author followed by "et al."
Bloom, Nicholas, et al. "Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment." The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 130, no. 1, 2015, pp. 165–218, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qju032.
In-text: (Bloom et al. 170). Author and page, with no comma.
Harvard
Harvard has no single official version. This example follows the widely used Cite Them Right style: author and year first, article title in single quotation marks, journal in italics.
Bloom, N., Liang, J., Roberts, J. and Ying, Z.J. (2015) 'Does working from home work? Evidence from a Chinese experiment', The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(1), pp. 165–218. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qju032.
In-text: (Bloom et al., 2015, p. 170).
Rules on how many authors to list and when to use "et al." differ between universities, so check your own Harvard guide.
Chicago (Notes and Bibliography)
In Chicago's notes and bibliography system, the article appears in a footnote and again in the bibliography. Chicago drops an initial "The" from journal titles.
Note: 1. Nicholas Bloom et al., "Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment," Quarterly Journal of Economics 130, no. 1 (2015): 170, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qju032.
Bibliography: Bloom, Nicholas, James Liang, John Roberts, and Zhichun Jenny Ying. "Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment." Quarterly Journal of Economics 130, no. 1 (2015): 165–218. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qju032.
Notes use the first author plus "et al." for four or more authors in the 17th edition and for three or more in the 18th. The bibliography lists the authors in full, within each edition's limits.
Vancouver
Vancouver numbers sources in the order they are cited, abbreviates the journal title using the NLM catalog and uses compact punctuation. List up to six authors; with more, list the first six followed by "et al."
1. Bloom N, Liang J, Roberts J, Ying ZJ. Does working from home work? Evidence from a Chinese experiment. Q J Econ. 2015;130(1):165-218. doi:10.1093/qje/qju032
In-text: a number in brackets (1), square brackets [1] or superscript, depending on your institution.
IEEE
IEEE uses bracketed numbers in citation order, initials before surnames, the article title in quotation marks and an abbreviated, italicized journal name.
[1] N. Bloom, J. Liang, J. Roberts, and Z. J. Ying, "Does working from home work? Evidence from a Chinese experiment," Q. J. Econ., vol. 130, no. 1, pp. 165–218, Feb. 2015, doi: 10.1093/qje/qju032.
In-text: [1], placed inside the sentence before the punctuation.
The Six Styles Side by Side
| Style | In-text | List order | Article title |
|---|---|---|---|
| APA 7th | (Bloom et al., 2015) | Alphabetical | Sentence case, no quotation marks |
| MLA 9th | (Bloom et al. 170) | Alphabetical | Title case in double quotation marks |
| Harvard | (Bloom et al., 2015) | Alphabetical | Sentence case in single quotation marks |
| Chicago | Footnote number | Alphabetical | Title case in double quotation marks |
| Vancouver | (1) | Order of citation | Sentence case, no quotation marks |
| IEEE | [1] | Order of citation | Sentence case in double quotation marks |
Two families emerge. Author-date and note styles alphabetize their lists; numbered styles list sources in the order you cite them.
DOIs, Missing Details and Common Mistakes
- DOI available: include it. APA, MLA and Harvard give it as a full https://doi.org/ link. No access date is needed.
- No DOI: cite volume, issue and pages as for print. APA adds the journal homepage URL only for online-only articles with no DOI.
- No issue number: leave the issue out.
- Article number instead of pages: give the article number, for example "Article e0213" in APA.
- Preprints: cite them as preprints with the server name, and replace them with the published version once it exists.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
| Mistake | Fix |
|---|---|
| Citing the database instead of the journal | Name the journal; the database is usually not needed |
| Wrong capitalization of the article title | Follow your style: sentence case or title case |
| Missing DOI | Look it up on the article page or the DOI search tool |
| Trusting a generator blindly | Check every exported reference against the article |
| Mismatched in-text citation and reference | Check author names and years match exactly |
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Frequently Asked Questions
Include it whenever the article has one. APA 7th, MLA 9th and most Harvard versions give it as a full https://doi.org/ link.
This is rare for journal articles. Start the reference with the article title in APA and MLA, and use a shortened title in the in-text citation.
In APA 7th, list the first 19, add an ellipsis, then the final author. Other styles set different limits, so check your style's rule.
Usually not. APA 7th and most styles omit it for journal articles; MLA lets you add it as a second container if you accessed the article there.
In Vancouver and IEEE, yes, using standard abbreviations. In APA, MLA, Harvard and Chicago, give the full title.
Add the page number to the in-text citation, such as (Bloom et al., 2015, p. 170) in APA or (Bloom et al. 170) in MLA.
Use them as a starting point, then check every detail against the article. They often get capitalization and author names wrong.