Skip to Main Content

Is it an Article, a Book, or a Chapter in a Book? Identifying Citations: Journal Articles

No matter what style manual you are following (APA, MLA, etc.), you will need to learn how to recognize the three basic types of citations. #citations #bibliography #article #book #chapter

Behavioral Ecology and Sociology

A JOURNAL ARTICLE CITATION: ELEMENTS IDENTIFIED

This color-coded guide identifies the elements that make up a journal article citation.  Notice how the arrangement of the very same elements changes depending on where you are viewing it as demonstrated in the following screenshots.

 

Bowyer, R. , Rachlow, J. , Stewart, K. , & Van Ballenberghe, V. (2011).

Vocalizations by alaskan moose: Female incitation of male aggression.

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 65 (12), 2251-2260.

 

Bowyer, R. , Rachlow, J. , Stewart, K. , & Van Ballenberghe, V. (2011).

Vocalizations by alaskan moose: Female incitation of male aggression.

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 65 (12), 2251-2260.

****************************************

COLOR KEY

AUTHOR(S)  Bowyer, R. , Rachlow, J. , Stewart, K. , & Van Ballenberghe, V.

TITLE OF THE ARTICLE  Vocalizations by alaskan moose: Female incitation of male aggression.

TITLE OF THE JOURNAL  Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

VOLUME NUMBER  65

ISSUE NUMBER  (12)

DATE  (2011)

PAGES  2251-2260

****************************************

HINTS - JOURNAL ARTICLES

  • Always have a volume number.
  • Often have an issue number.

A JOURNAL ARTICLE CITATION AS IT APPEARS IN A DATABASE LIST OF RESULTS

When you run a keyword search in one of our databases, you will see citations like this example from the OneSearch database in your list of results:

Screenshot of journal article citation in a database list of results.

A JOURNAL ARTICLE CITATION AS IT APPEARS ON A DATABASE DETAIL SCREEN

Clicking on the title of the article takes you to a detailed screen.

The citation may look different from the first view (this particular database happens to keep it the same) but will still have the same information:

Article citation on the detailed database screen.

A JOURNAL ARTICLE CITATION ACCOMPANYING THE FULL TEXT

And finally, the same citation will change its appearance one more time when you are looking at the full text of the article.  Again, all the same information is present, just arranged differently:

Screenshot of journal article citation in the full text.

Thin orange line.