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Nursing Research: Citing articles

If you are a nursing student, this guide is for you!

Citing articles from professional journals

Journal articles follow this pattern:

  1. Author/s of journal articles follow same rules as book authors
  2. Year of publication in parentheses: (year)
  3. Title of the article: Subtitle of the article. Apply the same rules as books as to title capitalizations.
  4. Name of the journal in italics, volume number in italics. If each issue of the journal starts on page 1, add the issue number in parentheses, no italics. For example: Health Psychology, 24, or Nursing 42(8). Admittedly, it is hard to tell in the online versions. Rule of thumb: If the pages are below 100, its likely to be each issue starting over at page 1.
  5. Start and end page numbers, the numbers only.  For example: 226-245 or 24-30.
  6. DOI, if available. If an article is from an online database, say Retreived from Database Name.
  7. If from the open Web, and no DOI, say Retreived from http://www.xxx.xxx/ Cite the full URL.

For example: 

A journal that pages continuously throughout the volume, from a print journal. 

Seidl, K.L., & Newhouse, R. P. (2012). The intersection of evidence-based practice with 5 quality improvement methodologies. JONA 42, 299-304. DOI:10,1097/NNA.0b01e31824ccdc9.

A journal that that starts paging with each issue so we cite the issue, from a print journal. 

Hassler, D. A., & Mendell, M. F. (2012). Help easy riders stay safe on ATVs. Nursing 42(8), 28-33. DOI: 10.1097/ 01.NURSE.0000415834.36242.f5.  

Citing articles from magazines or newspapers

Magazines and newspapers follow the same order as journals but cite the full dates as given. For example cite the year, month in parentheses after the authors for monthly magazines, and year, month day for daily, weekly or bi-weekly newspapers, magazines or newsletters. Bi-monthly publications, cite as (year, month/month).

A daily newspaper:

Grady, D. (2011, December 8). Panel finds few clear environmental links to breast cancer. New York Times. p. 3. Retreived from Lexis-Nexis.

A weekly magazine: 

Park, A. (2011, December 19) Decoding breast cancer. Time 178(24) 26-26. Retreived from Academic Search Complete.

A monthly magazine:

Engeler, A. (2011, October). I'm too young to get breast cancer! Good Housekeeping, 252(10), 61-68. Retreived from  Masterfile Premier.

A bi-monthly magazine

Williams, F. (2012, May/June). The few. The proud. The afflicted. Mother Jones, 37(3), 28-64. Retreived from Academic Search Complete. 

Just ASK!

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