How to Cite an Online Article in MLA

To cite an online article in MLA, first work out what kind of article it is — a magazine feature, a newspaper story, a journal study, or a plain post on a website — and then cite it as that kind of work. The website it happened to appear on is a container, not the source. This single decision controls your whole entry: the publication title goes in italics where the site name would otherwise sit, and everything that follows — date, page range, volume, issue — comes from the periodical, not the webpage.

The distinction matters because online articles carry information that ordinary web pages never do — publication dates with editorial precision, volume and issue numbers, print pagination, edition statements. Treating every web article as a generic webpage throws that information away.

The Rule: Cite the Material, Not the Website

MLA's guidance for web sources starts with a question: what kind of material is this? If it is a newspaper article, a magazine article, or a journal article, you use the rules for that work — the website only enters the citation afterwards, as the place you found it.

Ask three things in order:

1. Does the article belong to a publication? A masthead, a volume and issue, a consistent editorial name — anything that tells you it is a periodical.
2. Does that publication exist outside this website? Print magazines, newspapers, and journals do; a company blog or a listicle generally does not.
3. Am I reading the print version or the web version? The version you consulted decides whether page numbers appear.

If the answer to the first two questions is yes, the periodical is your container. If not, you are citing a page on a website and should follow how to cite a website in MLA instead.

The General Online Article Format

Across every periodical type, the shape is the same — author, article title, publication, publication details, then location:

The variables are which of those optional elements your source actually supplies. Magazines and newspapers usually have no volume or issue on the web. Journals almost always do. Newspapers rarely have page numbers online but often do in print. Each section below shows the version you are most likely to need.

Magazine Articles Published Online

A magazine article read on the magazine's website keeps the magazine as its container. Include the volume, issue, and page range only if the article itself displays them — most web editions do not:

If you consulted the print magazine — or a PDF that reproduces the printed pages — keep the print pagination and add the website as a second container:

Some magazines publish issues without dates, using season and year instead. Cite what the issue says — Spring 2025 — and never convert it to a day-month-year format the magazine did not use.

Newspaper and News Website Articles

News works the same way: the newspaper is the container, the URL is the location. Digital-native news organizations — sites with no print edition — are still cited by their editorial name, because the name is the publication.

Two news-specific details are worth knowing:

• Local and regional papers get the city of publication in square brackets after the title when the name does not already identify it: The County Register [Twin Falls, ID]. National papers do not need this.
• Edition statements survive when the source gives one — a late or final edition is identified after the newspaper title, exactly as in print.

News stories rarely have stable page numbers online, so your in-text citation is usually the author's last name alone. If you cited the print edition, use its page number as you would for any print source.

Journal Articles You Read Online

Scholarly articles carry the most information, and online versions usually keep all of it: volume, issue, date, and page range from the print original.

Notice that the page range here belongs to container one — the journal — and appears before the location. When the article also displays a DOI, prefer it over a URL and write it in full as https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx. If you read the article through a library database, the database becomes a second container after the journal; the mechanics of that are covered in citing a database.

When the Article Is Not Part of a Periodical

Plenty of online articles belong to no publication at all — a post on an organization's site, a report page, a guide written by a company. There is no masthead and no editorial identity, so there is no periodical container:

In this entry Edutopia is the website, not a periodical — the citation happens to look identical, but the element is doing a different job. When the site name and the publisher are the same organization, the publisher is still omitted. Articles written for a company blog follow blog citation rules, which add the blog and network names.

Finding the Publication Date on a News Page

News pages are the most common place students misread a date, because sites often show "updated" timestamps, relative times, or a date that belongs to a different version. Check in this order:

• The original publication timestamp near the byline — this is your date.
• An updated line beneath it — if the update changed the substance of the article, cite the update date; otherwise the original date is more useful to a reader.
• A date in the URL — often reliable, but confirm it against the visible timestamp.
• A copyright year only — cite the year alone rather than inventing a full date.

If no date exists at all, omit the element and add an access date — the full treatment is in citing a website with no date.

Containers: Why an Online Article Can Have Two

MLA's container model is what makes one template cover all of these cases. The article sits inside the periodical (container one). If you reached it through a database, an aggregator, or an academic platform, that platform is container two — and elements 3 through 9 repeat inside it.

Container one carries the journalistic details — date, edition, page range. Container two carries the access route and, where applicable, the DOI. You stop adding containers when the source stops giving you useful information about where it lives.

In-Text Citations for Online Articles

The parenthetical form follows the same rules as any other source, with one online-specific caution: use a page number only if the source you consulted actually had one.

An online news story with no pagination gives you a bare author citation — not a paragraph number, and not a print page number borrowed from a different edition you did not consult. When two articles by the same author appear in your list, add a shortened title to the parentheses. The rules for both cases are in our in-text citation guide.

Common Mistakes

• Citing the website name when a magazine, newspaper, or journal name exists — the publication is the container.
• Dropping volume, issue, or page numbers from a database PDF just because you read it online.
• Borrowing print page numbers for an article you only read on the web.
• Treating a digital-native news outlet as "just a website" and using a generic web citation.
• Adding a city bracket to national publications that do not need one.
• Citing the site's "updated" timestamp when the visible original date is the one attached to the article.
• Putting a URL in the parenthetical citation.
• Writing Web or "online" as a medium after the container — MLA 9 dropped that convention.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is an online article cited differently from a web page?

Yes. An article from a magazine, newspaper, or journal uses the publication's name as the container — and keeps any volume, issue, date, and page range that publication supplies. A plain web page uses the site name instead and rarely has those elements.

How do I cite a news article from a news website?

Author, article title in quotation marks, newspaper name in italics, publication date, then URL. Digital-only outlets are treated exactly the same as newspapers with a print edition, because the editorial name is what identifies the source.

Do I need the database name if I found the article on the publisher's website?

No. A second container is only included when it tells your reader where you actually found the source. If the journal published it on its own site and that is where you read it, the URL alone is sufficient.

What if the online version and the print version have different titles?

Cite the version you consulted, using its title. Headlines are frequently rewritten between print and web; matching your citation to the version you read keeps the entry verifiable.