7.2.1 General form

The general format for citing newspaper and popular magazine articles (other than academic journals) is as follows. This format covers both hardcopy and online editions.

Eg Rob Hosking “Messy Allowance Law Finally Gets Clarity” The National Business Review (New Zealand, 17 July 2009) at 2.

Eg Audrey Young “Entire NZ China trade board resigns” The New Zealand Herald (online ed, Auckland, 24 June 2011).

Eg Ruth Laugesen “Charge of the emissions brigade” New Zealand Listener (New Zealand, 24–30 September 2011) at 24.

Include the title of the article in double quotation marks, with spelling and capitalisation as per the original (unless the original is in all capitals, in which case capitalise only the first letter of significant words).

Quotation marks within the title of an article should be single.

Retain any italicisation within the title of an article.

Also retain the original spelling of the title.

If the article has no title, give a brief description of the article if this would aid its retrieval.

Cite the full title of the newspaper in italics, including the word “The” where it appears in the masthead.

If the section of the newspaper in which the article appears has its own title, include that title in italics before the title of the newspaper, with a comma separating the section title and the newspaper title.

(a) Place of publication

Give the place of publication following the newspaper title preceded by the left-hand, round bracket.

Where a publication does not identify with a specific city or town, give the country of publication.

If the newspaper is published outside New Zealand, include the country if this would aid retrieval of the article.

(b) Online edition

Where an online edition of a newspaper is used, the place of publication should be preceded by “online ed,”.

The place of publication of the hardcopy of the newspaper should be given even where an online edition is being cited. This is because the place of publication may be necessary to distinguish between newspapers in different cities or countries that have the same name, for example The Times.

When citing to an online edition it is unnecessary to give the URL. URL addresses for newspaper and magazine articles are often long and subject to change. Using a search engine, such as Google, it should be possible to easily find the article with the other information contained in the citation.

Eg “Lexington: The Next Supreme Court Justice” The Economist (online ed, London, 15 April 2010).

Eg Mary Scholtens “Judges as entitled to the rule of law as any other citizen” The Dominion Post (online ed, Wellington, 22 June 2010).

Give the full date (date, month and year) on which the article was published after the place of publication and followed by the right-hand, round bracket.

When giving the page number, also indicate the section of the newspaper if the sections are not consecutively paginated, for example “C14”.