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How to cite a journal article
Paste the DOI and the reference is built for you. The rest of this page is what the generator is doing, so you can check its work.
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The same source in all seven styles
One article, Aspelmeyer's Measured measurement in Nature Physics, in all seven styles. These are not typed out by hand: they come from the same formatter that writes your reference above, so what you read here is what you will get.
APA 7
Aspelmeyer, M. (2009). Measured measurement. Nature Physics, 5(1), 11–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1170
MLA 9
Aspelmeyer, Markus. "Measured measurement." Nature Physics, vol. 5, no. 1, 2009, pp. 11–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1170.
Harvard
Aspelmeyer, M. (2009) Measured measurement. Nature Physics, 5(1), pp. 11–12. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1170
Chicago 18
Aspelmeyer, Markus. "Measured measurement." Nature Physics 5, no. 1 (2009): 11–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1170.
IEEE
M. Aspelmeyer, "Measured measurement," Nature Physics, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 11–12, 2009. doi: 10.1038/nphys1170.
Vancouver
Aspelmeyer M. Measured measurement. Nature Physics. 2009;5(1):11–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1170.
AMA 11
Aspelmeyer M. Measured measurement. Nat Phys. 2009;5(1):11-12. doi:10.1038/nphys1170
Plain text cannot carry italics. Where a style italicises a title, apply it in your document after pasting.
What you need, and where to find it
Authors
On the article's first page and on its landing page. Keep the order printed there. It is the order the authors agreed on, and it is never alphabetical.
Year
The year of the issue, not the year you read it. An article published ahead of its issue does not have one yet.
Article title
The title of the piece itself. APA and Vancouver want sentence case, MLA and Chicago want headline case.
Journal name
The container the article sits inside. This is the part people put in the title slot by mistake.
Volume, issue and pages
Printed on the article's first page and repeated on the landing page. A single page is p., a range is pp.
DOI
A permanent address that starts 10. and never rots. Prefer it over any link your library gave you.
Where people go wrong
The DOI beats the URL you copied
A link from your library's catalogue usually carries a proxy address that only works for people at your university. A marker who cannot open it has to take your word for it. The DOI resolves for everyone, forever.
Vancouver and IEEE usually want the journal abbreviated
CiteRight prints the journal in full, which is correct for APA, MLA, Harvard and Chicago. Vancouver markers normally expect the NLM abbreviation, so Nature Physics becomes Nat Phys. Check your brief and shorten it yourself if it asks.
An article ahead of its issue has no volume or pages
Cite it with the year it went online and its DOI, and leave volume, issue and pages out rather than guessing. When the issue appears, the DOI still resolves and you can fill the rest in.
Questions
What if the article has no DOI?
Plenty of older articles never got one. Use the journal's own landing page for the article. Do not use the PDF link from your library: it is tied to your login and nobody else can open it.
Do I use the year I read it?
No. Use the year of the issue. Only an accessed date refers to when you read something, and journal articles do not need one because they do not change.
How many authors before et al.?
It depends on the style, which is the whole reason this is easy to get wrong. APA 7 names up to twenty, MLA 9 uses et al. from three onwards, Vancouver lists six. The generator applies each rule for you.
Citing something else?
Or read the rules for one style
THE ANDROID APP
Keep them, export them, and check your draft
CiteRight for Android keeps references in projects, exports a bibliography in any of the six styles, and checks a draft sentence by sentence for text that overlaps a source.