In this blog post, we will be looking at how to reference a newspaper article using the Harvard referencing system. We will start by asking what the purpose of referencing is and why it is so important, then move on to consider the correct format for a newspaper article reference. Bear in mind that this blog post is about physical newspaper articles; online newspaper articles take a different format, which we will look at in a later blog post. Finally, we will consider how reliable newspapers are as a source and what you can do to evaluate them.
Referencing is necessary for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is important that you always cite all of your sources, as it is unethical not to and you could be accused of plagiarism. However, do bear in mind that correctly referencing a source still doesn’t mean that you can copy it out unless you make it clear that this section is a quote. You should only be taking general ideas from a source and then using these to create your own work.
Secondly, referencing helps your readers to better understand your work. If you include the reference for the source that you are referring to, they should be able to find this and understand how it fits into your writing in context. In addition, if they are doing their own research, you referencing your sources means that they can use these to evaluate your work for reliability and broaden their reading.
The basic format for a newspaper article in a reference list is:
Surname, Initial(s)., Year. Title of article. Full Title of Newspaper, Date. Page number(s) and column reference.
For example:
Proom, F., 2015. Effects of new speeding fines. Huxton Chronicle, 17 Aug. p.6b.
We will now look at each of these parts of the reference in turn.
Surname
Simply write the author’s last name. If they have multiple ones or a double-barrelled one, include these in full.
Initial(s)
Again, this is just the initials of the author’s first name(s). If they have multiple first names, include them all, for example:
Proom, F.R.
Year
Write the year in a 4-digit format, for example, 2006.
Title of article
This should be the article title in full as it appears in the newspaper. Only the first word and any proper nouns should be capitalised; remove any other capitalisation in the title. For example, “Effects of New Speeding Fines” becomes “Effects of new speeding fines”.
Full Title of Newspaper
Again, use the full title as it appears on the front of the newspaper, writing in italics. However, the title of the newspaper keeps any capitalisation it has.
Date
This is the date the newspaper was first on sale. You only need to include the day and month as the year appears earlier in the reference. Write these in the format DD Month, using abbreviations where appropriate. For example, the 22nd of September becomes 22 Sep.
Page number(s) and column reference
Finally, include the page number that the article appears on, as well as its column reference. The columns in a newspaper article are labelled alphabetically from left to right. Therefore, the first column is “a”, the second is “b”, and so on. In the example reference above, the article is in the second column of the sixth page.
In-Text Citation
If you are referencing a newspaper article in the main text of your work, include the author’s surname and the year. There are two ways of doing this. Firstly, you can have a direct reference, which is where you mention the author, then include the year in brackets after. For example:
Proom (2015) states that…
Alternatively, you can have an indirect reference, with both the author’s name and the year in brackets, separated by a comma:
The fines introduced helped to fund new projects (Proom, 2015).
If there are two or three authors, include them all in the text:
Proom, Darson and Salmon (2015) establish…
If there are four or more authors, write the first one followed by “et al”, meaning “and others”.
(Proom, et al., 2015)
Remember that you need to include all the authors in your reference list.
Evaluating Sources
Before you cite anything in your work, it is a good idea to check its reliability as a source. There are a few things you should look for here. For example, when was the source created? Sources from recent years will be more useful than ones from twenty years ago, unless you are looking for a historical perspective.
In addition, consider what you know about the author. What else have they written? Are they usually reliable? Check their references, if there are any. Do they seem correct? Also, consider why the source was created. One that was created to persuade is less reliable than one that is purely to inform. Finally, how relevant is the source to your work? The more relevant it is, the more reliable it will be.
Wrapping Up
I hope that this helps you with referencing newspaper articles in your work. Next time, we will be looking at how to reference online journal articles, so come back in two weeks for that!
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