How to cite a journal article (APA 7, Harvard, Chicago, MLA) with examples

Journal articles are the most common source in a dissertation or term paper, and the one whose reference is most often generated for you: paste the DOI, let Zotero fill in the rest. Usually that works. When it doesn’t, the issue is missing, the pages belong to the online-first version, or the entry points to the preprint instead of the published article. This guide covers the parts of a journal reference, the common variants, a comparison of APA 7, Harvard (Cite Them Right), Chicago and MLA 9, and what to check before you submit.

The authors, articles and journals in the examples are made up, including the Journal of Example Studies. The DOIs start with 10.0000/example and deliberately do not resolve.

What counts as a journal article?

A journal article appears in a scholarly journal with a volume and usually an issue. It has a page range or an article number and, in most fields, a DOI. The journal is the container, not a publisher in the book sense, so no place of publication goes in the reference.

Three forms look similar but are cited differently:

• Newspaper articles carry a full date instead of volume and issue and almost never have a DOI. See citing newspaper articles.
• Preprints sit on arXiv, SSRN, bioRxiv or an institutional server and have not yet appeared in the journal. They get a [Preprint] label and the server in place of the journal. See citing preprints.
• Conference papers appear in proceedings. They also have pages and often a DOI, but editors and a volume title instead of a journal and issue. See citing conference papers and proceedings.

If proceedings are published as an issue of a journal, cite them as a journal article. What counts is where the text was actually published, not how it started.

The parts of a journal article reference

A complete reference needs seven elements. Order and punctuation change with the style; the content does not.

1. Authors in the order printed on the article. Don’t re-sort them; the order is part of the reference.
2. Year of publication. For online-first articles, the year of the advance version (see below).
3. Article title in plain text, without quotation marks in APA, in sentence case. Subtitle after a colon.
4. Journal name in italics, written out in full, not abbreviated, unless your field (medicine, for example) uses abbreviations.
5. Volume(issue): in APA 7 the volume is italic, the issue follows without a space, in parentheses, not italic: 12(3).
6. Page range with an en dash (45–67), or an article number if the journal doesn’t use pages.
7. DOI as a link: https://doi.org/10.0000/example.2024.003. Not “doi:”, not “DOI:”, and no publisher URL when there is a DOI.

What a DOI is and how it differs from an ISSN or ISBN is covered in DOI, ISBN and ISSN in citations. None of the major styles puts the journal’s ISSN in the reference list.

The basic case in APA 7:

Muster, A., Beispiel, B., & Probst, C. (2024). Study time and self-regulation in undergraduate programmes. Journal of Example Studies, 12(3), 45–67. https://doi.org/10.0000/example.2024.003

In the text: (Muster et al., 2024). With three or more authors, APA 7 uses “et al.” from the first citation. The reference list names everyone, up to twenty authors.

Variants you will meet in almost every paper

Online first and in press

Many journals post articles online before volume, issue and pages are assigned. APA 7 calls this an advance online publication. Use the year of the advance version and write “Advance online publication” where the volume, issue and pages would go:

Beispiel, B., & Muster, A. (2026). Feedback loops in writing centres. Journal of Example Studies. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.0000/example.2026.017

If the article has been accepted but isn’t online yet, write “in press” instead of the year; in the text, (Beispiel, in press). Check these entries again just before you submit. If the issue has come out in the meantime, add volume, issue and pages and update the year.

Article number instead of pages

Many open-access journals don’t use continuous page numbers; they give each article a number. APA 7 writes “Article” and the number in place of the page range:

Probst, C. (2025). Reading journals in teacher education. Journal of Example Studies, 8, Article 104. https://doi.org/10.0000/example.2025.104

Pages 1–14 of the PDF are not the journal’s page range. They don’t go in the reference, but you can use them to locate a quotation in the text (see below).

No DOI: URL or database

Not every article has a DOI, especially older ones and those in smaller journals. Look first: on the publisher’s article page, or with a title search on Crossref. If there really is none, APA 7 says:

• From a library database (EBSCO, ProQuest, JSTOR): cite it like the print version, with no database name and no link. A database link only works with your login.
• Freely available on the journal’s website: add the URL of the article page.

Muster, A. (2019). Term papers in transition. Journal of Example Studies, 7(1), 12–29. https://journal.example.org/jes/article/view/412

APA 7 doesn’t ask for an access date on journal articles. Some Harvard versions do whenever a URL appears; follow your guide.

More than 20 authors in APA

In medicine, physics or large collaborations an article can have 30 or 300 names. APA 7 lists up to 20 authors in full. From 21 onwards, give the first 19, then an ellipsis with no ampersand, then the final author:

Muster, A., Beispiel, B., Probst, C., … Zeller, Z. (2025). Title of the article. Journal of Example Studies, 9(2), 101–118. https://doi.org/10.0000/example.2025.201

Authors four to nineteen are left out here to save space; in your paper you write them out. In the text it stays (Muster et al., 2025). If a group is named as the author, such as a consortium, use the group name.

Special issues

Cite an article from a special issue like any other article. The title of the special issue doesn’t go in the reference.

If you cite the whole special issue, the guest editors take the author position, the issue title is in plain text, followed by a label in square brackets. There’s no page range:

Beispiel, B., & Probst, C. (Eds.). (2025). Writing with AI tools [Special issue]. Journal of Example Studies, 13(2). https://doi.org/10.0000/example.2025.si2

Preprint or published version

Many articles appear first as a preprint, and Google Scholar often lists both versions side by side. If the published version exists, cite it. It has been peer reviewed, and figures, wording and pages sometimes change between preprint and issue.

If you only read the preprint, open the published version and find the passage there. If it’s unchanged, switch the reference. If it has changed, cite what was published. Cite the preprint only if there is no journal version, or if the difference between versions is your subject.

Comparison: APA 7, Harvard, Chicago and MLA

The same made-up two-author article, quoted from page 52:

Harvard is a family of styles, not one codebook. Cite Them Right is the most common version at UK universities; some departmental versions add “(Accessed: date)” after every link or drop “Available at:”. Chicago and MLA use headline-style capitalisation for article titles, APA uses sentence case. Later Chicago notes are shortened: 2. Muster and Beispiel, “Study Time,” 54. For the bigger picture, see Harvard referencing, footnotes versus in-text citations, citation styles compared and the APA 7 citation guide.

In-text citations with page or paragraph

When you paraphrase the article as a whole, author and year are enough in APA 7. A page is recommended when you refer to a specific passage and required for every direct quotation:

• With pages: (Muster & Beispiel, 2024, p. 52), or across two pages (pp. 52–53).
• With an article number: if the PDF itself is paginated, use that page: (Probst, 2025, p. 7). The article number is not a locator.
• Without pages, for example an HTML-only article: give a section heading, a paragraph number or both, (Probst, 2025, Discussion section, para. 2).

The page in the text has to fall within the page range in the reference list. “p. 3” for an article on pages 45–67 almost always means you used the PDF page instead of the printed page number. How to set long quotations is covered in block quotations.

Get a clean entry from the DOI and check it

The fastest route to a good entry is the DOI. In Zotero, click the magic wand (“Add Item by Identifier”) and paste the DOI. Zotero pulls the metadata from Crossref or DataCite, which is usually better than what the browser connector scrapes from a publisher page. More shortcuts are in the Zotero workflow tips.

Then check the entry once against the first page of the PDF:

• Item type is “Journal Article”, not “Web Page” or “Document”.
• Authors complete, first and last names in the right fields, no publisher or editorial office entered as a person.
• Title not in ALL CAPS. APA wants sentence case, and Zotero won’t change the capitalisation for you.
• Journal written out in the Publication field; the abbreviation belongs in Journal Abbr.
• Volume, issue, pages match the version you cite. For online-first articles they’re rightly empty; once the issue is out, they shouldn’t be.
• Date is the publication year, not the day you created the entry.
• DOI sits in the DOI field, not in URL and not in both. A style like APA then builds the https://doi.org/ link itself.

Is the journal sound and the article still valid?

A perfectly formatted reference doesn’t help if the source can’t carry the claim. Two checks before you cite:

The journal. Does it actually peer review its articles? Signs are a named editorial board, a described review process, and indexing in the databases of your field. How to tell is covered in how to identify peer-reviewed sources. Journals that publish almost anything for a fee are described in spotting predatory journals.

The article. Has it been retracted or corrected? The publisher’s article page then shows a “Retracted” or “Expression of Concern” notice. Zotero flags retracted items in your library using Retraction Watch data. How to check a reference and what to do with a retracted article is covered on the retraction checker page. It no longer supports a finding.

Common mistakes

PDF page instead of journal page. “p. 3” for an article on pp. 45–67.

DOI as plain text, or twice. “doi:10.0000/…” plus the publisher URL underneath. One https://doi.org/… link is enough.

Someone else’s DOI. Copied from another article in the same journal or from an earlier version. Click every DOI once; it has to lead to exactly this article.

Missing or invented issue. If the journal has issues, include the issue. If it doesn’t, don’t invent one.

Abbreviated journal name where the style wants it in full. “J. Ex. Stud.” isn’t APA.

Online-first entry never updated. By the time you submit, the issue has often come out.

Preprint instead of article. If the published version exists, it belongs in the reference list.

Database link as the source. An EBSCO or ProQuest link only works with your login.

Checklist before you submit

• Every journal article has authors, year, title, journal, volume(issue) and pages or an article number.
• Every DOI written as https://doi.org/… and clicked once: it leads to exactly this article.
• No DOI: database articles cited like print, freely available articles with the journal’s URL.
• Online-first and in-press entries checked against the published issue.
• Published version instead of preprint wherever it exists.
• Page numbers in the text fall within the page range in the reference list.
• Journal peer reviewed, article not retracted.

See an example: A prefilled example shows how the check flags entries with a missing DOI, the wrong issue or pages that don’t match. Check a sample citation →

Whether the sentence in your paper is actually in the article you cite is what Acurio checks when you upload your thesis and the article PDFs. It matches every claim against the passage you point to. Whether your department accepts the journal as a source is not something the tool decides.