Can I Use News Articles in Academic Writing?

Newspapers, tabloids, and other forms of similar media are not typically considered academic sources. However, they can be a valuable primary source, as they provide first-hand accounts of events or experiences. News sources can provide information that academic sources cannot or that will take a long time to reach academic sources. For example, news sources are great for learning about people's prevailing reactions, opinions, and attitudes around the timing of an event. When it comes to citing a newspaper article in the APA format, it is similar to citing any other source.

Writing for newspapers is meant for the majority, while academic writing is for the scientific and scientific minority. When writing an article for the Times Newspaper and academic writing, both differ in their objectives and in the audience they serve. It is common for heavily condensed ads in this location to take you back to the news outlet's website for more information. The differences between writing articles for newspapers and academic writing can be studied under six points. At its most developed point, this may be a systematic analysis of discourse, examining the way in which, for example, social class is discussed in newspaper publications or how neoliberal ideas were embedded in New Labour discourses and political texts (a famous study by Norman Fairclough).

This quick 4-page review (JSTOR) gives a good impression of what such a systematic discourse analysis can be like. The rules for citing a newspaper article in APA references depend on whether the article is in print or online. Some sources are great for breaking news, others are great for aggregated (or compiled) news, and others are great for historical news.

Jacob King
Jacob King

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