How to Cite a Journal Article from an Online Database in MLA

INSTRUCTOR: How to cite a journal article from an online database in MLA style.

Say you are researching for a paper about popular culture and children, and you read an article online about how children are exposed to popular music. But because you found the article through an online database, it’s hard to identify what elements you need for a citation.

Academic journal databases house works from many different publications and allow you to search given keywords or topics. Many require special access, so you may need to login through your school library’s homepage.

Notice that scholarly journal articles are different from newspaper or magazine articles found online or in an online database.

Scholarly journal articles are peer reviewed texts, meaning they are written by experts in the field being discussed, they cite sources for information used in the text, and they are generally read by a board of experts before they are allowed to be published. Newspaper and magazine articles are rarely subject to this kind of scrutiny prior to publishing.

JSTOR is a searchable, online database that includes articles from over one thousand academic journals. The article shown here originally appeared in the journal Popular Music.

To cite a scholarly journal article from a database in MLA style, you’ll need to gather 8 elements: the author, the title of the article, the name of the journal, the volume and issue numbers of the specific journal in which the article appeared, the publication date of the specific journal, the page range, the name of the database in which you accessed the article, and web address or digital object identifier, or doi, of the article.

Databases often provide multiple ways of finding information about a source. Here, there is source information in the topmost part of the database interface; in the heading information on the first page of the original print article; and under the “cite this item” link. Be sure to take a few moments to explore the interface of the database you’re using to see where citation information is available.

You’ll usually find the author just under the article’s title. Author names are often listed in a different font or style. Here, it is given in all capital letters, although you shouldn’t use all capitals in your citation. Always present the author with his or her last name first.

Now cite the article’s title. Here, it’s listed in large type within the database interface and on the scanned image of the journal page. Be sure to include both the article’s main title and its subtitle. If there is more than one author, those subsequent names should be presented with their first name first. Be sure to list authors in the order they appear in the source.

Next, find the name of the journal. It is often listed prominently in the database interface, as it is here. It will also be in the header or footer of scanned pages of the print article.

Near the name of the journal—both in the database interface and in the article header—find the volume and issue numbers of the specific publication in which the article appears. In this case, the volume number is 21, and the issue number is 3.

Next, include the article’s year of publication.

You will next need to find the page numbers on which the article originally appeared. You can look through the scanned article pages for the first and last page numbers, or look for a given page range in the database interface or on the PDF cover page. Here, the interface helpfully provides the original page range. If an article doesn’t appear on consecutive pages, write only the number of the first page, followed by a plus sign.

Now add the title of the database. It will usually be at the very top of the page. Sometimes this title is a logo or contained in a logo, as it is here. In your Works Cited entry, the title of the database should be italicized.

Finally, you want to provide the location of your source on the Web. You can do this a couple of ways. If the database only provides a URL (preferably a static—or permanent—one), add that to your Works Cited entry. However, when available MLA prefers that the citation include what’s called a digital object identifier, or doi. A doi is a unique string of characters that is assigned to a journal article or website. If the web address ever changes, the doi always remains the same, allowing a reader to always find your source.

Once you’ve found all the elements for your citation, double check your punctuation.

There should be a comma separating the author’s last and first names, followed by a period. The article title should be in quotes, with a period inside the quotes. The journal title should be in italic font. The volume and issue numbers, which should be separated by a period, should not be italicized. The publication year should be surrounded by commas. The first and last pages should be separated by a hyphen and followed by a period. The name of the database should be in italic font and followed by a comma. The doi should be followed by a period. When you add this citation to your works cited entry, be sure to indent each line except for the very first one. This is called a hanging indent.

And that’s how you cite a journal article from a database in MLA style.