An article is a single piece of writing on a specific topic that can be found in a magazine, newspaper, or journal.

Journals are publications that are usually issued monthly, quarterly or on some other periodic basis (which is why they are sometimes called "periodicals"). Every issue of a journal will usually contain a collection of articles.

How do you know which is which? Let's take a citation like this:

Knox, Allison G. S. “A Matter of Obscenity: The Politics of Censorship in Modern England.” International Social Science Review, vol. 100, no. 2, Apr. 2024, pp. 12–14. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsh&AN=178285670&site=ehost-live.

The name of the journal is almost always in italics. In this case, the journal is: International Social Science Review.

The name of the article comes before the journal name in both MLA and APA citations. In an MLA citation, it is also in quotation marks. It often focuses on a more specific topic than the overall journal does. In this case, the article is: “A Matter of Obscenity: The Politics of Censorship in Modern England.”

To learn more about the different kinds of journals and how to evaluate library resources, check out our Evaluating Sources research guide.