how to cite a news article in an essay

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APA Style (7th Edition) Citation Guide: Magazine/Newspaper Articles

• Introduction
• Journal Articles
• Magazine/Newspaper Articles
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• Government & Legal Documents
• Biblical Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Films/Videos/TV Shows
• How to Cite: Other
• Additional Help

Table of Contents

Magazine/newspaper article from a website, magazine/newspaper article from a library database, magazine/newspaper article in print, magazine/newspaper article with an unknown author.

Note: All citations should be double spaced and have a hanging indent in a Reference List.

A "hanging indent" means that each subsequent line after the first line of your citation should be indented by 0.5 inches.

This Microsoft support page contains instructions about how to format a hanging indent in a paper.

How Do I Know If It's a Newspaper?

Not sure whether your article is from a newspaper? Look for these characteristics:

• Main purpose is to provide readers with a brief account of current events locally, nationally or internationally.
• Can be published daily, semiweekly or weekly.
• Articles are usually written by journalists who may or may not have subject expertise.
• Written for the general public, readers don't need any previous subject knowledge.
• Little, if any, information about other sources is provided.

Articles may also come from journals or magazines.

If an item has no author, start the citation with the article title.

If, and only if, the article is signed "Anonymous", put the word Anonymous where you would normally place the author's name.

Cite author names in the order in which they appear on the source, not in alphabetical order.

Italicize titles of journals, magazines and newspapers. Do not italicize or use quotation marks for the titles of articles.

Capitalize only the first letter of the first word of the article title. If there is a colon in the article title, also capitalize the first letter of the first word after the colon.

If an item has no date, use the short form n.d. where you would normally put the date.

If an original publication date and a last updated date are provided, use the last updated date. If the more current date is "last reviewed" instead of "last updated," use the original publication date (since the review may not have changed the content).

Retrieval Dates

Most articles will not need these in the citation. Only use them for online articles from places where content may change often, like a free website or a wiki.

Page Numbers

If an article has no page numbers provided, leave that part of the citation out in the References List.

If an article doesn't appear on continuous pages, list all the page numbers the article is on, separated by commas. For example (4, 6, 12-14)

In the Body of a Paper

Books, Journals, Reports, Webpages, etc.: When you refer to titles of a “stand-alone work,” as the APA calls them on their APA Style website, such as books, journals, reports, and webpages, you should italicize them. Capitalize words as you would for an article title in a reference, e.g., In the book Crying in H Mart: A memoir , author Michelle Zauner (2021) describes her biracial origin and its impact on her identity.

Article or Chapter: When you refer to the title of a part of a work, such as an article or a chapter, put quotation marks around the title and capitalize it as you would for a journal title in a reference, e.g., In the chapter “Where’s the Wine,” Zauner (2021) describes how she decided to become a musician.

The APA Sample Paper below has more information about formatting your paper.

• APA 7th ed. Sample Paper

Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication, Month Day if Given). Title of article: Subtitle if any.  Name of Newspaper . URL

Note:  If the article is on continuous pages put a dash (-) between the first and last page numbers. If the article appears on discontinuous page numbers, give all page numbers separated with commas between them.

Brody, J. E. (2007, December 11). Mental reserves keep brain agile. The New York Times . https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/health/11iht-11brod.8685746.html

Note: This entry has no page numbers, so this information is left out of the citation.

In-Text Paraphrase:

(Author's Last Name, Year)

Example: (Brody, 2007)

In-Text Quote:

(Author's Last Name, Year, p. Page Number if available)

Note: This entry has no page numbers, paragraph numbers, or section headings so this information is left out of the in-text citation.

Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication, Month Day if Given). Title of article: Subtitle if any.  Name of Newspaper,  SectionPage if Given. 

Note:  For newspaper articles from library databases, include the newspaper title and any volume/issue/page numbers that are provided. Do not include the database information.

Kidd, K. (2011, August 7). Cart blanche: City of Portland celebrates sidewalk dining with minimal rules for food carts. The Toronto Star,  A5.

Example: (Kidd, 2011)

Example: (Kidd, 2011, p. A5)

Author's Last Name, First Initial. Second Initial if Given. (Year of Publication, Month Day if Given). Title of article: Subtitle if any.  Name of Newspaper , SectionPage.

Schwartz, J. (1993, September 30). Obesity affects economic, social status. The Washington Post , A1, A4.

Example: (Schwartz, 1993)

(Author's Last Name, Year, p. Page Number)

Example: (Schwartz, 1993, A1)

Title of article: Subtitle if any. (Year of Publication, Month Day if Given).  Name of Newspaper , SectionPage.

Note:  If an author's name is not given, do not include an author in the citation; however, if the article is signed "Anonymous," then use "Anonymous" in place of the author's name. 

Get on board for train safety. (2012, June 17).  The New York Times , A14.

("One two or three words from the title", Year)

Example: ("Get on board", 2012)

Note: Choose one or more words from the title, enough to clearly identify the article. Use double quotation marks around the words from a title of an article in the in-text citation.

("One two or three words from the title", Year, Page Number)

Example: ("Get on board," A14)

Note: Choose one or more words from the title, enough to clearly identify the article. Use double quotation marks around the words from title of an article in the in-text citation.

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MLA Citation Guide (MLA 9th Edition): Newspaper Articles

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What if an author is not listed?

Begin the newspaper article citation with the title of the article if the author's name is not listed. For the in-text citation, list the first word or first few words of the title (excluding a, an, the).

Newspaper Article in Print

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Article: Subtitle if Any." Name of Newspaper, Date of Publication, p. Page number. 

Cook, Lorne. "EU Warns 3 Nations of Legal Action."  San Francisco Chronicle,  14 June 2017, p. A4+. 

Note:   If the article appears on non-consecutive pages (e.g., the article starts on page 4 then continues on page 12), write the first page number and a plus (+) sign. E.g., 4

Newspaper Article from a Website

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Article: Subtitle if Any." Name of New Publication , Date of Publication, URL.

Litz, Sarah. "All the Fires: What You Need to Know on Size, Containment."  Reno Gazette-Journal , 12 July 2017, www.rgj.com/story/news/2017/07/12/farad-fire-updates-size-containment-hills-burn-west-verdi/471293001/.

  Note: This entry has no page numbers, so this information is left out of the citation.

Newspaper Article from a Library Database

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Article: Subtitle if Any." Name of Newspaper [city of newspaper if city name not in name], Date of Publication, p. Page number if given. Name of Database, Permalink URL. 

Russolillo, Steven. "Why the Housing Market is Getting Stronger: New-home Sales and Quarterly Results from Toll Brothers this Week Should Bolster the Housing Market's Solid Fundamentals."  Wall Street Journal , 22 May 2016.  ProQuest,  unr.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1790256212?accountid=452. 

 Note : If an article title ends with a question mark or exclamation mark, you do not need to add a period to the end of the title. 

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• Writing Tips

Harvard Referencing – How to Cite a Newspaper Article

2-minute read

• 27th July 2016

Newspapers and magazines aren’t the most common sources in academic writing . Nevertheless, you may need to cite a magazine or newspaper article when writing about something that has been in the media (or when analysing the media itself). As such, we’re looking at how to cite a newspaper article or magazine in Harvard referencing.

In-Text Citations

As with most source types, Harvard referencing uses a standard author–date format for in-text citations of magazines and newspapers.

The important thing here is to check whether the article has a named author. If it does, use the author’s name in your citation alongside the year of publication. If it’s a print version of the article and you’re quoting it directly, you should also provide relevant page numbers:

Leicester’s season was ‘hailed as a sporting miracle’ (Wagg, 2016, p. 20).

If the article has no named author, simply use the newspaper/magazine’s name instead:

A Yorkshire terrier called Eddie was reunited with his owners after being missing for five years, despite living only half a mile away (The Guardian, 2016).

As you can see, we’ve picked the most hard-hitting news story we could find to use as an example in this post.

Reference List

If you’ve cited a print version of a magazine or newspaper article, the information required in the reference list is as follows (if no author is named, as above, use the magazine/newspaper title):

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Surname, Initial(s). (Year) ‘Title of Article’, Title of Newspaper/Magazine , issue number (if applicable), day and/or month of publication, page number(s).

The Wagg article in the example above would therefore appear as:

Wagg, S. (2016) ‘Under No Illusions’, When Saturday Comes , 352, June, pp. 20-21.

For online articles, the format is similar but with a URL and date of access given in place of page numbers:

Surname, Initial(s). (Year) ‘Title of Article’, Title of Newspaper/Magazine , issue number (if applicable), day and/or month of publication [Online]. Available at URL [Accessed date].

The Guardian article above would therefore appear in the reference list as:

The Guardian (2016) ‘Missing dog found half a mile from owners’ home after five years’, The Guardian , 20 May [Online]. Available at http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/20/missing-dog-found-five-years-yorkshire-terrier-eddie-microchip [Accessed 24 June 2016].

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How to Cite a Newspaper Article in an Essay

Various styles of writing provide different guidelines for citing a newspaper that you reference or quote in your essay. Citing a print paper will require you to note which pages the article appears on, while depending on your style guide, a Web source will require the URL or access date.

American Psychological Association

To cite a newspaper article in APA, include both the name of the article and the publication in which it appears. Also list all pages on which the article is found after the publication name:

Jones, M. (2006, March 14). Doctors disappear in police SNAFU. The London Star , pp. A1, A3-A4.

Multiple authors are separated by commas and ampersands in APA:

Jones, M., & Noble, D. (2008, July 5). Britons unite! The London Star , p. A2.

If taken from an online version of a newspaper, the URL is used in place of the page numbers:

Pinchevsky, T. (2015, April 14). Who will rule the NHL now? The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/who-will-rule-the-nhl-now-1429030826?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsForth

Modern Language Association

In MLA style, article titles are placed in quotes. The date is included after the name of the publication, and the type of publication -- print or Web -- is placed after the date and page info:

Jones, Martha. "Doctors disappear in police SNAFU." The London Star 14 March 2006: A1, A3-A4. Print.

If a citation includes multiple authors, authors past the first are listed firstname lastname:

Jones, Martha, and Donna Noble. "Britons unite!" The London Star 5 July 2008: A2. Print.

A Web citation doesn't include URL, but must include the last date you accessed the article:

Pinchevsky, Tal. "Who will rule the NHL now?" The Wall Street Journal 14 April 2015. Web. 14 April 2015.

In-Text Citations

To cite an APA source in text, note the author or authors' names, and the year -- but not month or day -- of the article: (Jones, 2006) If you directly quote a source, include the page number in the citation as well: (Jones & Noble, 2008, p. A2).

In MLA, in-text citations include the author name and page number, but no date: (Jones A3). Multiple authors are separated by "and" rather than an ampersand: (Jones and Noble A2).

Need help with a citation? Try our citation generator .

• APA Style: How Do You Cite a Newspaper Article?
• Purdue University Online Writing Lab: Reference List -- Author/Authors
• Purdue University Online Writing Lab: MLA Works Cited -- Periodicals
• Dixie State University Library: How to Cite Print Newspapers

Jon Zamboni began writing professionally in 2010. He has previously written for The Spiritual Herald, an urban health care and religious issues newspaper based in New York City, and online music magazine eBurban. Zamboni has a Bachelor of Arts in religious studies from Wesleyan University.

Home / Guides / Citation Guides / MLA Format / How to Cite an Essay in MLA

How to Cite an Essay in MLA

The guidelines for citing an essay in MLA format are similar to those for citing a chapter in a book. Include the author of the essay, the title of the essay, the name of the collection if the essay belongs to one, the editor of the collection or other contributors, the publication information, and the page number(s).

Citing an Essay

Mla essay citation structure.

Last, First M. “Essay Title.” Collection Title, edited by First M. Last, Publisher, year published, page numbers. Website Title , URL (if applicable).

MLA Essay Citation Example

Gupta, Sanjay. “Balancing and Checking.” Essays on Modern Democracy, edited by Bob Towsky, Brook Stone Publishers, 1996, pp. 36-48. Essay Database, www . databaseforessays.org/modern/modern-democracy.

MLA Essay In-text Citation Structure

(Last Name Page #)

MLA Essay In-text Citation Example

Click here to cite an essay via an EasyBib citation form.

MLA Formatting Guide

MLA Formatting

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• et al Usage
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• View MLA Guide

Citation Examples

• Book Chapter
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• View all MLA Examples

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To cite your sources in an essay in MLA style, you need to have basic information including the author’s name(s), chapter title, book title, editor(s), publication year, publisher, and page numbers. The templates for in-text citations and a works-cited-list entry for essay sources and some examples are given below:

In-text citation template and example:

For citations in prose, use the first name and surname of the author on the first occurrence. For subsequent citations, use only the surname(s). In parenthetical citations, always use only the surname of the author(s).

Citation in prose:

First mention: Annette Wheeler Cafarelli

Subsequent occurrences: Wheeler Cafarelli

Parenthetical:

….(Wheeler Cafarelli).

Works-cited-list entry template and example:

The title of the chapter is enclosed in double quotation marks and uses title case. The book or collection title is given in italics and uses title case.

Surname, First Name. “Title of the Chapter.” Title of the Book , edited by Editor(s) Name, Publisher, Publication Year, page range.

Cafarelli, Annette Wheeler. “Rousseau and British Romanticism: Women and British Romanticism.” Cultural Interactions in the Romantic Age: Critical Essays in Comparative Literature , edited by Gregory Maertz. State U of New York P, 1998, pp. 125–56.

To cite an essay in MLA style, you need to have basic information including the author(s), the essay title, the book title, editor(s), publication year, publisher, and page numbers. The templates for citations in prose, parenthetical citations, and works-cited-list entries for an essay by multiple authors, and some examples, are given below:

For citations in prose, use the first name and surname of the author (e.g., Mary Strine).

For sources with two authors, use both full author names in prose (e.g., Mary Strine and Beth Radick).

For sources with three or more authors, use the first name and surname of the first author followed by “and others” or “and colleagues” (e.g., Mary Strine and others). In subsequent citations, use only the surname of the first author followed by “and others” or “and colleagues” (e.g., Strine and others).

In parenthetical citations, use only the author’s surname. For sources with two authors, use two surnames (e.g., Strine and Radick). For sources with three or more author names, use the first author’s surname followed by “et al.”

First mention: Mary Strine…

Subsequent mention: Strine…

First mention: Mary Strine and Beth Radick…

Subsequent mention: Strine and Radick…

First mention: Mary Strine and colleagues …. or Mary Strine and others

Subsequent occurrences: Strine and colleagues …. or Strine and others

…. (Strine).

….(Strine and Radick).

….(Strine et al.).

The title of the essay is enclosed in double quotation marks and uses title case. The book or collection title is given in italics and uses title case.

Surname, First Name, et al. “Title of the Essay.” Title of the Book , edited by Editor(s) Name, Publisher, Publication Year, page range.

Strine, Mary M., et al. “Research in Interpretation and Performance Studies: Trends, Issues, Priorities.” Speech Communication: Essays to Commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Speech Communication Association , edited by Gerald M. Phillips and Julia T. Wood, Southern Illinois UP, 1990, pp. 181–204.

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Quick guide to Harvard referencing (Cite Them Right)

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There are different versions of the Harvard referencing style. This guide is a quick introduction to the commonly-used Cite Them Right version. You will find further guidance available through the OU Library on the Cite Them Right Database .

For help and support with referencing and the full Cite Them Right guide, have a look at the Library’s page on referencing and plagiarism . If you need guidance referencing OU module material you can check out which sections of Cite Them Right are recommended when referencing physical and online module material .

This guide does not apply to OU Law undergraduate students . If you are studying a module beginning with W1xx, W2xx or W3xx, you should refer to the Quick guide to Cite Them Right referencing for Law modules .

Table of contents

In-text citations and full references.

• Secondary referencing
• Page numbers
• Citing multiple sources published in the same year by the same author

Full reference examples

Referencing consists of two elements:

• in-text citations, which are inserted in the body of your text and are included in the word count. An in-text citation gives the author(s) and publication date of a source you are referring to. If the publication date is not given, the phrase 'no date' is used instead of a date. If using direct quotations or you refer to a specific section in the source you also need the page number/s if available, or paragraph number for web pages.
• full references, which are given in alphabetical order in reference list at the end of your work and are not included in the word count. Full references give full bibliographical information for all the sources you have referred to in the body of your text.

To see a reference list and intext citations check out this example assignment on Cite Them Right .

Difference between reference list and bibliography

a reference list only includes sources you have referred to in the body of your text

a bibliography includes sources you have referred to in the body of your text AND sources that were part of your background reading that you did not use in your assignment

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Examples of in-text citations

You need to include an in-text citation wherever you quote or paraphrase from a source. An in-text citation consists of the last name of the author(s), the year of publication, and a page number if relevant. There are a number of ways of incorporating in-text citations into your work - some examples are provided below. Alternatively you can see examples of setting out in-text citations in Cite Them Right .

Note: When referencing a chapter of an edited book, your in-text citation should give the author(s) of the chapter.

Online module materials

(Includes written online module activities, audio-visual material such as online tutorials, recordings or videos).

When referencing material from module websites, the date of publication is the year you started studying the module.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication/presentation) 'Title of item'. Module code: Module title . Available at: URL of VLE (Accessed: date).

OR, if there is no named author:

The Open University (Year of publication/presentation) 'Title of item'. Module code: Module title . Available at: URL of VLE (Accessed: date).

Rietdorf, K. and Bootman, M. (2022) 'Topic 3: Rare diseases'. S290: Investigating human health and disease . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1967195 (Accessed: 24 January 2023).

The Open University (2022) ‘3.1 The purposes of childhood and youth research’. EK313: Issues in research with children and young people . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1949633&section=1.3 (Accessed: 24 January 2023).

You can also use this template to reference videos and audio that are hosted on your module website:

The Open University (2022) ‘Video 2.7 An example of a Frith-Happé animation’. SK298: Brain, mind and mental health . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=2013014&section=4.9.6 (Accessed: 22 November 2022).

The Open University (2022) ‘Audio 2 Interview with Richard Sorabji (Part 2)’. A113: Revolutions . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1960941&section=5.6 (Accessed: 22 November 2022).

Note: if a complete journal article has been uploaded to a module website, or if you have seen an article referred to on the website and then accessed the original version, reference the original journal article, and do not mention the module materials. If only an extract from an article is included in your module materials that you want to reference, you should use secondary referencing, with the module materials as the 'cited in' source, as described above.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of message', Title of discussion board , in Module code: Module title . Available at: URL of VLE (Accessed: date).

Fitzpatrick, M. (2022) ‘A215 - presentation of TMAs', Tutor group discussion & Workbook activities , in A215: Creative writing . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/forumng/discuss.php?d=4209566 (Accessed: 24 January 2022).

Note: When an ebook looks like a printed book, with publication details and pagination, reference as a printed book.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) Title . Edition if later than first. Place of publication: publisher. Series and volume number if relevant.

For ebooks that do not contain print publication details

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) Title of book . Available at: DOI or URL (Accessed: date).

Example with one author:

Bell, J. (2014) Doing your research project . Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Adams, D. (1979) The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy . Available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/kindle-ebooks (Accessed: 23 June 2021).

Example with two or three authors:

Goddard, J. and Barrett, S. (2015) The health needs of young people leaving care . Norwich: University of East Anglia, School of Social Work and Psychosocial Studies.

Example with four or more authors:

Young, H.D. et al. (2015) Sears and Zemansky's university physics . San Francisco, CA: Addison-Wesley.

Note: You can choose one or other method to reference four or more authors (unless your School requires you to name all authors in your reference list) and your approach should be consistent.

Note: Books that have an editor, or editors, where each chapter is written by a different author or authors.

Surname of chapter author, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of chapter or section', in Initial. Surname of book editor (ed.) Title of book . Place of publication: publisher, Page reference.

Franklin, A.W. (2012) 'Management of the problem', in S.M. Smith (ed.) The maltreatment of children . Lancaster: MTP, pp. 83–95.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Journal , volume number (issue number), page reference.

If accessed online:

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Journal , volume number (issue number), page reference. Available at: DOI or URL (if required) (Accessed: date).

Shirazi, T. (2010) 'Successful teaching placements in secondary schools: achieving QTS practical handbooks', European Journal of Teacher Education , 33(3), pp. 323–326.

Shirazi, T. (2010) 'Successful teaching placements in secondary schools: achieving QTS practical handbooks', European Journal of Teacher Education , 33(3), pp. 323–326. Available at: https://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/log... (Accessed: 27 January 2023).

Barke, M. and Mowl, G. (2016) 'Málaga – a failed resort of the early twentieth century?', Journal of Tourism History , 2(3), pp. 187–212. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/1755182X.2010.523145

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Newspaper , Day and month, Page reference.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Newspaper , Day and month, Page reference if available. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Mansell, W. and Bloom, A. (2012) ‘£10,000 carrot to tempt physics experts’, The Guardian , 20 June, p. 5.

Roberts, D. and Ackerman, S. (2013) 'US draft resolution allows Obama 90 days for military action against Syria', The Guardian , 4 September. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/04/syria-strikes-draft-resolut... (Accessed: 9 September 2015).

Surname, Initial. (Year that the site was published/last updated) Title of web page . Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Organisation (Year that the page was last updated) Title of web page . Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Robinson, J. (2007) Social variation across the UK . Available at: https://www.bl.uk/british-accents-and-dialects/articles/social-variation... (Accessed: 21 November 2021).

The British Psychological Society (2018) Code of Ethics and Conduct . Available at: https://www.bps.org.uk/news-and-policy/bps-code-ethics-and-conduct (Accessed: 22 March 2019).

Note: Cite Them Right Online offers guidance for referencing webpages that do not include authors' names and dates. However, be extra vigilant about the suitability of such webpages.

Surname, Initial. (Year) Title of photograph . Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Kitton, J. (2013) Golden sunset . Available at: https://www.jameskittophotography.co.uk/photo_8692150.html (Accessed: 21 November 2021).

stanitsa_dance (2021) Cossack dance ensemble . Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/COI_slphWJ_/ (Accessed: 13 June 2023).

Note: If no title can be found then replace it with a short description.

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Gamified inoculation reduces susceptibility to misinformation from political ingroups

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Psychological inoculation interventions, which seek to pre-emptively build resistance against unwanted persuasion attempts, have shown promise in reducing susceptibility to misinformation. However, as many people receive news from popular, mainstream ingroup sources (e.g., a left-wing person consuming left-wing media) which may host misleading or false content, and as ingroup sources may be more persuasive, the impact of source effects on inoculation interventions demands attention. In this experiment, we find that although news consumers are more susceptible to (non-political) misinformation from political ingroup publishers pre-intervention, gamified inoculation successfully improves veracity discernment and reduces susceptibility to misinformation from both political ingroup and outgroup publishers.

Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK

Research Questions

• Are news consumers more susceptible to misinformation from political ingroup publishers?
• Can gamified inoculation reduce susceptibility to misinformation from real news publishers?
• Can gamified inoculation reduce susceptibility to misinformation from political ingroup publishers?
• Are news consumers more susceptible to misinformation from ingroup publishers post-intervention?
• Does gamified inoculation improve veracity discernment or the ability to tell apart misinformation and “real news”?

Essay Summary

• News consumers are more susceptible to misinformation if it comes from political ingroup publishers (which align with their ideological preferences).
• Gamified inoculation reduces susceptibility to misinformation even if the source of the misinformation is a well-known (mainstream) news publisher.
• Gamified inoculation reduces susceptibility to misinformation from political ingroup publishers.
• News consumers are no longer more susceptible to ingroup (compared to outgroup) attributed misinformation after a gamified inoculation intervention.

Implications 

Research has shown that it is possible to cognitively immunize individuals against misinformation (which we define as any information that is false or misleading), much like how people can be vaccinated against viral infections (Compton et al., 2021; McGuire, 1964; Traberg et al., 2022; van der Linden, 2022). Gamified inoculation interventions (Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2019; Maertens et al., 2024)—which both forewarn participants about the threat posed by misinformation and cognitively prepare them to refute deceptive tactics and strategies—have shown promise in terms of both their effects and potential for scalability (Roozenbeek, van der Linden, et al., 2022). However, many people receive news from popular (mainstream) political ingroup news sources (Grieco, 2020; Matsa, 2021), which have been found to increase misinformation susceptibility (Traberg & van der Linden, 2022). This prompts the question of whether inoculation interventions can reduce susceptibility to misinformation if it is produced by popular and well-known news sources, particularly sources that share news consumers’ political ideology.

This study addresses these questions by testing whether a popular gamified inoculation intervention—the  Bad News  game (Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2019)—can reduce susceptibility to misinformation from (mainstream) political ingroup sources. Previous studies have shown that people who play  Bad News  are significantly better at correctly identifying misinformation as being unreliable either post-gameplay (Roozenbeek, Traberg, et al., 2022) or compared to a control condition (Basol et al., 2020).

However, to date, inoculation interventions have largely been tested using misinformation from bogus sources or without source attributions (Traberg et al., 2022). However, as news consumers often rely on and seek out partisan news sources (Grieco, 2020; Matsa, 2021), and popular (mainstream) news sources have also been found to publish misleading and sometimes false content (Motta et al., 2020), it is crucial to understand whether inoculation interventions also protect people even in the presence of potentially powerful source effects. Examining whether interventions can overcome source effects is relevant and important not just for inoculation interventions, but any cognitive or psychological intervention aimed at reducing misinformation susceptibility. This is in part because misinformation attributed to mainstream sources that news consumers may find particularly credible can be more persuasive than complete falsehoods from bogus sources (Traberg, 2022; Tsfati et al., 2020).  

To answer this question, our study employed a mixed pre-post between-subjects design, in which participants were assigned to view a series of misinformation headlines either from left-leaning US news outlets (e.g.,  The   New York Times, The Washington Post ), right-leaning U.S. news outlets (e.g.,  Fox News, The Wall Street Journal ), or a control condition (with no source information), both before and after playing  Bad News  (total  N  = 657). We recoded source conditions into political ingroups or outgroups based on participants’ own indicated political ideology, to examine whether or not misinformation susceptibility would be differentially reduced based on whether the sources of misinformation were political in- or outgroups, and further assessing this difference relative to the control condition, in which participants saw no information about the news sources. 

Promisingly, our results show that across conditions, playing Bad News successfully reduces misinformation susceptibility; that is, participants are better at correctly identifying misleading headlines as unreliable post-gameplay, with no major source effects. Our results further show that participants were indeed more likely to perceive misinformation attributed to political ingroup publishers as being more reliable pre-intervention compared to when it was attributed to an outgroup or with no source information present. This was the case when groups were categorised based on the match or mismatch between a participant’s political ideology and a previous crowdsourced content-based analysis of the news source slant (Budak et al., 2016). In addition, however, we found similar results when we categorised the data based on participants’ own perceptions of the source’s media slant. At the same time, participants were also significantly more likely to reject factual headlines when they were attributed to an outgroup source pre-inoculation.

Encouragingly, however, across the ingroup, outgroup, and control conditions, reliability judgements of misinformation were lower post-intervention. In fact, this reduction was (descriptively, not significantly) largest for misinformation from ingroup sources. We also find that inoculation lowered the perceived reliability of factual headlines post-gameplay, but only at an effect size of d = 0.11, considered to be a negligible effect size (Sullivan & Feinn, 2012). Furthermore, veracity discernment, that is, participants’ ability to discern between factual information and misinformation significantly improved post-gameplay.

This work builds on our understanding of the impact of source cues on misinformation interventions. Our results highlight that sources have a significant impact on misinformation susceptibility, but also show that gamified inoculation interventions can significantly improve misinformation susceptibility despite the presence of these effects. In fact, we also find that although group-based source effects are present in pre-intervention judgements of misinformation, these effects disappear post-intervention, suggesting that inoculation interventions can contribute to reducing source biases, despite the intervention not being explicitly designed to reduce them.

We further show that clear source effects appear pre-intervention based on participants’ own perceived slant of the source. Previous research has to date only investigated the impact of researcher-categorised in- and outgroups, defining an “ingroup” based on whether participants’ indicated political ideology matches a pre-defined categorisation of source slant—e.g., defining Fox News as an ingroup for a participant who identifies as conservative. We here show the same effects for sources that participants themselves believe to share their political ideology.

Our results also impact our understanding of how we should test and develop interventions tailored at reducing misinformation susceptibility. Although we find that the Bad News game reduces susceptibility to misinformation from political ingroup sources, we also find clear ingroup/outgroup source effects. This suggests that interventions might benefit from incorporating training in the impact of contextual cues that may mislead news consumers, in addition to content-based clues.

This study is one of the first to test the efficacy of a misinformation intervention with a variety of contextual cues, but there are several limitations. First, although we find promising results, the results are based on a limited selection of (U.S. mainstream) sources and test items and, as with most intervention research, are limited in the sense that online participants are self-selected and may be those who are already willing to learn about misinformation. Furthermore, there are far more contextual cues and biases in the news environment than sources alone and publishers are not the only sources that may play a role in the news consumption process. The “sharer” or “messenger” of headlines may play an equal if not larger role. Secondly, because a burgeoning literature is now pointing to a significant impact of sources on misinformation susceptibility, our work suggests that inoculation interventions may benefit from including training and refutational material that specifically seeks to reduce this bias to achieve effects more relevant to the real world.

Finding 1: News consumers are more susceptible to misinformation from political ingroup sources pre-intervention.

While we did not pre-register this analysis, our goal was to assess whether participants would be more susceptible to misinformation from political ingroups pre-inoculation. After all, for it to be interesting to examine whether inoculation interventions can specifically reduce misinformation susceptibility to misinformation from ingroup sources, this bias must be observed prior to administering inoculation interventions in the first place. While previous research has found this to be the case (Traberg & van der Linden, 2022), it was necessary to assess whether this was also the case in the current study.

We ran a generalized linear model (GLM) with perceived reliability of misinformation pre-gameplay as the dependent variable (DV) and group identity (ingroup, outgroup, control/no source) as the independent variable (IV). Results showed an overall model effect, F (2,654) = 9.97, p < . 001, η p 2 = 0.03: participants were significantly more likely to judge misinformation headlines as reliable when they were attributed to political ingroup sources ( M = 3.36, SE = 0.09) compared to when attributed to both political outgroups ( M = 3.02, SE = 0.09, d = 0.29, p < . 001) and a control condition ( M = 2.91, SE = 0.09, d = 0.40, p < . 001). There was no significant difference between misinformation attributed to outgroups and the control condition ( p = . 61, d = 0.10), a finding which suggests it is ingroups that are powerful in making information more persuasive.

As a robustness check, we also ran the same analysis with source group level categorized based on the participants’ own perception of the sources’ slant (e.g., if the participant identified as right-wing and they judged the source to be a right-leaning source, this was categorized as a perceived ingroup). In this categorization, we categorized sources as “neither” if participants rated it a 4 (neither left-leaning nor right-leaning on the 7-point scale). A GLM with perceived reliability of misinformation pre-gameplay as DV and perceived group identity as IV was significant, F (3, 644) = 7.15, p < . 001, η p 2 = 0.03, and mirroring the results above, participants were significantly more likely to judge misinformation headlines as reliable when they were attributed to sources they perceived as ingroup sources ( M = 3.36, SE = 0.08) compared to when attributed to both the perceived outgroup ( M = 3.02, SE = 0.09, d = 0.30, p < . 05) and the control ( M = 2.91, SE = 0.09, d = 0.40, p < . 001). There was also a significant difference between the control ( M = 2.91, SE = 0.09 and the “neither” conditions ( M = 3.40, SE = 0.12, d = 0.43, p < . 01), and between the perceived outgroup ( M = 3.02, SE = 0.09) and “neither” ( M = 3.40, SE = 0.12, d = 0.33, p < . 05) conditions. No other significant differences between conditions were observed. These findings suggest that sources are powerfully persuasive cues when it comes to misinformation and that news consumers are more likely to judge misinformation as reliable if it is attributed to a political ingroup news publisher. Findings are displayed in Figure 1.

Finding 2: Gamified inoculation reduces susceptibility to misinformation from real news publishers.

As hypothesized in the pre-registration, we find a significant overall reduction in perceived reliability after playing Bad News ( M = 2.55, SD = 1.38) compared to pre-gameplay ( M = 3.16, SD = 1.16, t (656) = 14.10, p < .001, d =0.55).

To further examine the impact of the source conditions compared to the control condition in which no sources were present, we ran a GLM with perceived reliability of misinformation as the DV and inoculation (pre-/post-intervention) and source condition (left, right, control/no source) as IVs. Based on previous research (Traberg & van der Linden, 2022), we hypothesized in our pre-registration that the inoculation effect (the pre-/post-difference in reliability) would be larger for misinformation from left-leaning sources (as our sample skewed liberal and as the left-leaning sources included have previously been judged to be more credible, on average; see Table S3 for the sample composition). The results showed a main effect of inoculation across conditions, F (1, 1308) = 53.84, p < . 001, η p 2 = 0.04, such that the perceived reliability of our misinformation items was significantly lower post-gameplay ( M = 2.43, SE = 0.05) compared to pre-gameplay ( M = 2.99, SE = 0.05, p < . 001 d = 0.45). We also find a significant main effect of news source condition, F (2, 1308) = 38.84, p < . 001, η p 2 = 0.06, such that misinformation headlines from left-leaning sources were judged as significantly more reliable ( M = 3.11, SE = 0.05) compared to misinformation headlines from right-leaning sources ( M = 2.43, SE = 0.08, p < . 001, d = 0.55) and without source attributions ( M = 2.57, SE = 0.07, p < . 001, d = 0.43). No significant differences were observed between reliability judgements of headlines from right-leaning sources and without source attributions ( p = . 36, d = 0.12). However, we find no significant interaction between the source conditions and the inoculation effect, F (2, 1308) = 2.07, p = . 13, η p 2 < 0.01, suggesting that there was no significant difference between the inoculation effect based on the source conditions. As such, our hypothesis was not confirmed. Findings are displayed in Figure 2 (see Table S2 and Figure S1 in the Appendix for a full overview).

This finding has important implications for our understanding of the efficacy of inoculation interventions in the modern news environment where even popular and mainstream media sources have been found to publish misinformation (not necessarily false but rather misleading; see Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2024, chapter 1). False or misleading information coming from such publishers may have longer-lasting effects than if the source is unknown or generally known to be unreliable (Traberg, 2022; Tsfati et al., 2020) and the post hoc effects may be harder to eliminate, given that these mainstream sources benefit from significantly higher levels of perceived credibility.

Finding 3: Gamified inoculation reduces susceptibility to misinformation from political ingroup sources.

Playing the Bad News game successfully reduced misinformation susceptibility across all conditions. We hypothesized that there would be no interaction between political source congruence and the inoculation effect (pre-/post-difference). Testing null hypotheses can be complicated, as the absence of a significant effect (i.e., p < .05 under a frequentist framework) does not always mean a true absence of effects, as there may be small yet meaningful effects that were not found due to, for instance, a lack of sufficient sample size (Lakens et al., 2020). We, therefore, tested this hypothesis under a Bayesian framework, which allows for more intuitive null hypothesis testing. Specifically, we conducted a Bayesian ANOVA with the perceived reliability of misinformation as the dependent variable, group (ingroup/outgroup/control) and time (pre-/post-intervention) as fixed factors, and participant ID as a random effect. 1 To do so, we used Jamovi ( https://www.jamovi.org/ ), specifically the “JSQ” library which allows for Bayesian analyses; see the analysis script on our Harvard Dataverse page.

Doing so shows that the interaction group * time (i.e., the interaction between experimental condition and time, i.e., pre vs post) does not add meaningful predictive power under a Bayesian framework (BF Inclusion = .153; P(Model | Data) = .037). 2 A Bayes Factor of < .200 is considered sufficient support for the null hypothesis H0, the equivalent of a Bayes Factor of > 5 being considered sufficient support for the alternative hypothesis H1 (Lakens et al., 2020; van Doorn et al., 2021). In other words, the posterior values of the perceived reliability of misinformation are not meaningfully different if the model controls for this interaction. This means that although both experimental condition (group) and time (pre-post) separately strongly predict the perceived reliability of misinformation (BF 10 = 2.67*10 38 for the group + time model), we found support for the null hypothesis that source congruence does not influence the inoculation effect, i.e., the pre-post difference in reliability ratings of misinformation (see supplementary analyses and Tables S1A and S1B in the Appendix for a full overview of this analysis).

In fact, examining the difference in reductions across conditions, we find a greater reduction in perceived reliability of misinformation in the ingroup-source misinformation condition ( M diff = 0.64, SE = 0.10) compared to the outgroup-source misinformation condition ( M diff = 0.52, SE = 0.13).

Finding 4: News consumers are no longer more susceptible to ingroup (compared to outgroup) attributed misinformation post-gameplay.

Given that we find statistically significant differences on the perceived reliability of misinformation pre-intervention, we ran an exploratory analysis to examine whether these differences were also present post-intervention. An ANOVA with group identity (ingroup, outgroup, control) and perceived reliability of misinformation post-intervention shows a significant impact of group, F (2,654) = 6.55, p < . 01. However, post hoc comparisons show that the only significant difference is between the control and ingroup ( M diff = -0.48, SE =0.13 p < . 01), with no significant differences between the ingroup and outgroup ( M diff = 0.22, SE = 0.13 p = . 20) or between the outgroup and control ( M diff = -0.26, SE =0.15 p = . 19). This suggests that, although there was a significant group-level bias on misinformation judgements prior to inoculation, this bias was no longer present post-gameplay. It is therefore possible that inoculating individuals against misinformation also helps reduce ingroup-sourced misinformation bias. However, further research is necessary to confirm this hypothesis. Furthermore, source biases may be more pervasive in the real world and when it comes to political misinformation. As such, it may still be beneficial for future inoculation interventions to also aim to inoculate specifically against source effects on top of inoculating against content effects.

Finding 5: Gamified inoculation significantly improves veracity discernment .

Given the open question regarding the efficacy of gamified inoculation interventions in improving veracity discernment (van der Linden, 2024), we analyzed whether participants’ veracity discernment was significantly increased post-gameplay. Veracity discernment was calculated as the average perceived reliability of factual news minus the average perceived reliability of misinformation. We conducted a paired-samples t -test comparing veracity discernment pre- and post-inoculation intervention; this showed a significant improvement, t (651) = 8.48, p < . 001, M Diff = 0.48, SE = 0.06, d = 0.33. That is, participants were significantly better at discerning between the reliability of factual news and misinformation post-gameplay compared to before. Figure 5 illustrates this result. In line with our pre-registration, we also conducted a Bayesian paired-samples t- test on the pre- and post-inoculation reliability judgments of true news headlines, showing a small reduction in the perceived reliability of true news (d = 0.12) (see supplementary analyses in the Appendix).

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether source cues impact the efficacy of the  Bad News  game. The study was approved by the University of Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee (PRE.2019.104). All statistical analyses were performed using Jamovi ( www.jamovi.org ) or R. Visualisations were created using Jamovi and JASP ( www.jasp-stats.org ). Please see our Harvard Dataverse page for the datasets and analysis scripts.

Participants

Data was collected on the  Bad News platform (see more information under “inoculation intervention”). Data collection was set to run for as long as the game platform was available to host the study—between November 1, 2020, and January 15, 2021. We pre-registered the study and main analyses on the Open Science Framework (see  https://osf.io/uqwd2?view_only=f1030b5dcefe4278b13d092cb0d88676 ).

This study employed a between-subjects design and manipulated source slant across three conditions (left-wing source false/right-wing source facts, n = 374; right-wing source/left-wing facts, n = 126; and control, n = 157). In line with our pre-registration, we recoded conditions such that we had three group identity categories (ingroup, n = 321; outgroup, n = 179; control, n = 157) based on whether the source slant matched participants’ own identified political ideology.

The final sample was thus N = 657 participants (43% female, 84% with at least some college education, 71% between 18–29; 21% conservatives). As such the sample was unbalanced on these demographic variables (see Table S3 in the Appendix for more details). This skew is in line with previous studies that relied on data collected from the Bad News game’s in-game survey tool (e.g., Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2019; Roozenbeek, Traberg, et al., 2022). As we relied on voluntary survey participation by people who navigated to the Bad News website, we were unable to reduce sample skew for this study. However, we note that our sample nonetheless contains n = 137 conservatives, which is substantial and comparable to previously published studies asking similar research questions around political ideology and misinformation susceptibility (e.g., Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2020; Traberg & van der Linden, 2022).

We manipulated the publisher logo on news headlines across three conditions: a traditionally left-wing publisher, a right-wing publisher, and a control condition where the source was blurred out. News sources were selected using the same method as Traberg & van der Linden (2022) relying on a previous crowdsourced content analysis of news media (Budak et al., 2016). The left-wing publishers were The New York Times , The Washington Post, and CNN ; the right-wing publishers were Fox News , The Wall Street Journal , and Breitbart .

To select unreliable news headlines, we used Hoaxy, a platform developed by researchers at Indiana University that visualizes the spread of claims and fact checking. We carried out a search to identify misleading headlines based on their use of one of three misleading strategies used by misinformation producers identified by previous research (Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2020). These three misinformation tactics included: 1) using exaggeratedly emotional language to distort the news story to generate strong emotional responses, 2) creating or inspiring conspiratorial thinking to rationalise current events, and 3) discrediting otherwise reputable individuals, institutions, or facts to instil doubt in audiences. The non-misleading headlines did not make use of any manipulation techniques and were based on factual news.

Perceived reliability of misinformation

To measure misinformation susceptibility, participants were asked to rate each item’s reliability on a standard 7-point Likert scale: “How reliable is the above news headline?” (1 = very unreliable, 7 = very reliable).

Source similarity

Source similarity was coded according to whether or not the participants’ reported political ideology matched the political slant of the source. As political affiliation was originally collected on a 7-point scale, this was converted to a binary (liberal vs conservative) measure and for the analysis which focused specifically on source similarity, participants who had reported a “moderate” political stance (that is, a 4 on the 1–7 scale) were excluded from analyses.

In a secondary analysis and as a manipulation check, we also analysed participants’ own perceptions of the source slant and categorised sources based on this. That is, if a participant identified as being “left-wing” and rated CNN as “left-wing,” this was categorised as an ingroup source.

Demographics

Age was measured categorically (18–29, 30–49, and over 50). Highest level of completed education was categorized as “high school or less,” “college or university,” and “higher degree;” gender was grouped as “female,” “male,” and “other.” Finally, political affiliation was measured on a 7-point scale where 1 is very left-wing and 7 is very right-wing (see Table S3 in the Appendix for a sample overview).

Inoculation intervention

The inoculation intervention used was the Bad News game ( https://www.getbadnews.com/ ; Basol et al., 2020; Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2019), an online “serious” game in which players learn about six manipulation techniques commonly used in misinformation, such as impersonation, conspiratorial reasoning,  or ad hominem attacks (see Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2024, chapter 8). Individuals roleplay as a “fake news” producer in a simulated social media environment, where they are exposed to weakened doses of misinformation. Within this environment, they are actively prompted to generate their own content and gain a following by spreading misinformation. The game is free and was created in collaboration with the Dutch media platforms DROG ( DROG , 2023) and TILT ( https://www.tilt.co/ ).  

Participants who visited the Bad News game website and played the game between November 1, 2020, and January 15, 2021, were automatically asked if they would like to take part in a scientific study prior to gameplay. If participants agreed to take part in this study, they were asked to provide informed consent. Following this, they answered the socio-demographic information. Participants were assigned to a condition by selecting a number from one to three, which then redirected them to one of the three source conditions. Once they were assigned a condition, they were exposed to new headlines, told that these were screenshots of real headlines, and asked to report on the above measures (perceived reliability). All participants subsequently played the Bad News game, after which they were asked to judge the reliability of the same headlines post-gameplay. Finally, they answered questions about the various source slants and credibility. After completing the study, participants were debriefed regarding the true purpose of the study and informed that the headlines were fictitious.

• / Information Bias
• / Partisan Issues

Cite this Essay

Traberg, C. S., Roozenbeek, J., & van der Linden, S. (2024). Gamified inoculation reduces susceptibility to misinformation from political ingroups. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review . https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-141

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Traberg, C. S., Roozenbeek, J., & van der Linden, S. (2022). Psychological inoculation against misinformation: Current evidence and future directions. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , 700 (1). https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162221087936

Traberg, C. S., & van der Linden, S. (2022). Birds of a feather are persuaded together: Perceived source credibility mediates the effect of political bias on misinformation susceptibility. Personality and Individual Differences , 185 (111269). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111269

Tsfati, Y., Boomgaarden, H. G., Strömbäck, J., Vliegenthart, R., Damstra, A., & Lindgren, E. (2020). Causes and consequences of mainstream media dissemination of fake news: Literature review and synthesis. Annals of the International Communication Association , 44 (2), 157–173. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2020.1759443

van der Linden, S. (2024). Countering misinformation through psychological inoculation. In B. Garwonski (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 69, pp. 1–58). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.aesp.2023.11.001

van Doorn, J., van den Bergh, D., Böhm, U., Dablander, F., Derks, K., Draws, T., Etz, A., Evans, N. J., Gronau, Q. F., Haaf, J. M., Hinne, M., Kucharský, Š., Ly, A., Marsman, M., Matzke, D., Gupta, A. R. K. N., Sarafoglou, A., Stefan, A., Voelkel, J. G., & Wagenmakers, E.-J. (2021). The JASP guidelines for conducting and reporting a Bayesian analysis. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review , 28 (3), 813–826. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-020-01798-5

This research was supported by the Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholarship and the Economic and Social Research Council Doctoral Training Programme.

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests. However, two authors (J. R. and S. v. d. L.) were involved in the development of the Bad News game. They have no financial stake in the game, DROG group, or TILT.

The research protocol employed was approved by the University of Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee (PRE.2019.104).

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author and source are properly credited.

Data Availability

All materials needed to replicate this study are available via the Harvard Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/BOJP4D

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I Served on the Florida Supreme Court. What the New Majority Just Did Is Indefensible.

On April 1, the Florida Supreme Court, in a 6–1 ruling, overturned decades of decisions beginning in 1989 that recognized a woman’s right to choose—that is, whether to have an abortion—up to the time of viability.

Anchored in Florida’s own constitutional right to privacy, this critical individual right to abortion had been repeatedly affirmed by the state Supreme Court, which consistently struck down conflicting laws passed by the Legislature.

As explained first in 1989:

Florida’s privacy provision is clearly implicated in a woman’s decision of whether or not to continue her pregnancy. We can conceive of few more personal or private decisions concerning one’s body in the course of a lifetime.

Tellingly, the justices at the time acknowledged that their decision was based not only on U.S. Supreme Court precedent but also on Florida’s own privacy amendment.

I served on the Supreme Court of Florida beginning in 1998 and retired, based on our mandatory retirement requirement, a little more than two decades later. Whether Florida’s Constitution provided a right to privacy that encompassed abortion was never questioned, even by those who would have been deemed the most conservative justices—almost all white men back in 1989!

And strikingly, one of the conservative justices at that time stated: “If the United States Supreme Court were to subsequently recede from Roe v. Wade , this would not diminish the abortion rights now provided by the privacy amendment of the Florida Constitution.” Wow!

In 2017 I authored an opinion holding unconstitutional an additional 24-hour waiting period after a woman chooses to terminate her pregnancy. Pointing out that other medical procedures did not have such requirements, the majority opinion noted, “Women may take as long as they need to make this deeply personal decision,” adding that the additional 24 hours stipulated that the patient make a second, medically unnecessary trip, incurring additional costs and delays. The court applied what is known in constitutional law as a “strict scrutiny” test for fundamental rights.

Interestingly, Justice Charles Canady, who is still on the Florida Supreme Court and who participated in the evisceration of Florida’s privacy amendment last week, did not challenge the central point that abortion is included in an individual’s right to privacy. He dissented, not on substantive grounds but on technical grounds.

So what can explain this 180-degree turn by the current Florida Supreme Court? If I said “politics,” that answer would be insufficient, overly simplistic. Unfortunately, with this court, precedent is precedent until it is not. Perhaps each of the six justices is individually, morally or religiously, opposed to abortion.

Yet, all the same, by a 4–3 majority, the justices—three of whom participated in overturning precedent—voted to allow the proposed constitutional amendment on abortion to be placed on the November ballot. (The dissenters: the three female members of the Supreme Court.) That proposed constitutional amendment:

Amendment to Limit Government Interference With Abortion: No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion. 

For the proposed amendment to pass and become enshrined in the state constitution, 60 percent of Florida voters must vote yes.

In approving the amendment to be placed on the ballot at the same time that it upheld Florida’s abortion bans, the court angered those who support a woman’s right to choose as well as those who are opposed to abortion. Most likely the latter groups embrace the notion that fetuses are human beings and have rights that deserve to be protected. Indeed, Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz, during oral argument on the abortion amendment case, queried the state attorney general on precisely that issue, asking if the constitutional language that defends the rights of all natural persons extends to an unborn child at any stage of pregnancy.

In fact, and most troubling, it was the three recently elevated Gov. Ron DeSantis appointees—all women—who expressed their views that the voters should not be allowed to vote on the amendment because it could affect the rights of the unborn child. Justice Jamie Grosshans, joined by Justice Meredith Sasso, expressed that the amendment was defective because it failed to disclose the potential effect on the rights of the unborn child. Justice Renatha Francis was even more direct, writing in her dissent:

The exercise of a “right” to an abortion literally results in a devastating infringement on the right of another person: the right to live. And our Florida Constitution recognizes that “life” is a “basic right” for “[a]ll natural persons.” One must recognize the unborn’s competing right to life and the State’s moral duty to protect that life.

In other words, the three dissenting justices would recognize that fetuses are included in who is a “natural person” under Florida’s Constitution.

What should be top of mind days after the dueling decisions? Grave concern for the women of our state who will be in limbo because, following the court’s ruling, a six-week abortion ban—at a time before many women even know they are pregnant—will be allowed to go into effect. We know that these restrictions will disproportionately affect low-income women and those who live in rural communities.

But interestingly, there is a provision in the six-week abortion ban statute that allows for an abortion before viability in cases of medical necessity: if two physicians certify that the pregnant patient is at risk of death or that the “fetus has a fatal fetal abnormality.”

The challenge will be finding physicians willing to put their professional reputations on the line in a state bent on cruelly impeding access to needed medical care when it comes to abortion.

Yet, this is the time that individuals and organizations dedicated to women’s health, as well as like-minded politicians, will be crucial in coordinating efforts to ensure that abortions, when needed, are performed safely and without delay. This is the time to celebrate and support organizations, such as Planned Parenthood and Emergency Medical Assistance , as well as our own RBG Fund , which provides patients necessary resources and information. Floridians should also take full advantage of the Repro Legal Helpline .

We all have a role in this—women and men alike. Let’s get out, speak out, shout out, coordinate our efforts, and, most importantly, vote . Working together, we can make a difference.

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Sophia Bush comes out as queer, confirms relationship with Ashlyn Harris

By Lucia Suarez Sang

Updated on: April 30, 2024 / 10:46 AM EDT / CBS News

"One Tree Hill" star Sophia Bush addressed her recent divorce and rumors of infidelity in a candid personal essay for Glamour magazine . In the cover story for the fashion magazine, Bush also came out as queer and confirmed that she is dating retired U.S. Women's National Team soccer player Ashlyn Harris.

In the essay, she described the cold feet she experienced before tying the knot with Hughes in July 2022.

"In April of 2022 I was close to calling off my wedding. Instead of running away, I doubled down on being a model wife," she wrote.

Bush said she kept trying to tell herself that "relationships are hard" and that "marriage takes compromise" but that the "heartbreak of the fertility process" led her to reassess her marriage.

"Six months into that journey, I think I knew deep down that I absolutely had made a mistake. It would take my head and heart a while longer to understand what my bones already knew," she wrote.

Bush filed for divorce from entrepreneur Grant Hughes in August 2023 after a year of marriage. A month later, Harris filed for divorce from her former teammate Ali Krieger . Shortly after both divorces became public, it was reported Bush and Harris were dating.

In her essay, Bush said the decision to file for divorce took time – and came after many conversations with "groups of women in my life [who] started opening up about issues they were going through in their own homes." Harris, she said, was one of those women. They had met in 2019.

"She's been such a kind ear for those of us who opened up about our problems during a shared weekend of speaking engagements at a fancy conference in Cannes, and soon it became clear that she needed our ears too."

Bush said she didn't expect to find love in this support system and felt her feelings for Harris developed slowly and simultaneously overnight.

"And I think it's very easy not to see something that's been in front of your face for a long time when you'd never looked at it as an option and you had never been looked at as an option," she wrote in the essay.

Elsewhere, social media viewed their love as an affair.

"The online rumor mill began to spit in the ugliest ways. There were blatant lies. Violent threats. There were accusations of being a home-wrecker," she wrote in the essay. "The ones who said I'd left my ex because I suddenly realized I wanted to be with women — my partners have known what I'm into for as long as I have."

She added: "The idea that I left my marriage based on some hysterical rendezvous — that, to be crystal-clear, never happened — rather than having taken over a year to do the most soul crushing work of my life? Rather than realizing I had to be the most vulnerable I've ever been, on a public stage, despite being terrified to my core? It feels brutal."

Elsewhere in the essay, Bush said that while she sort of hates the notion of having to come out in 2024, she is acutely aware that "we are having this conversation in a year when we're seeing the most aggressive attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community in modern history."

"There were more than 500 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills proposed in state legislatures in 2023, so for that reason I want to give the act of coming out the respect and honor it deserves. I've experienced so much safety, respect, and love in the queer community, as an ally all of my life, that, as I came into myself, I already felt it was my home."

As for a label, Bush said her sexuality exists on a spectrum and believes the word that best defines her at the moment is "queer."

"I can't say it without smiling, actually. And that feels pretty great," she wrote.

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Lucia Suarez Sang is an associate managing editor at cbsnews.com. Previously, Lucia was the director of digital content at FOX61 News in Connecticut and has previously written for outlets including FoxNews.com, Fox News Latino and the Rutland Herald.

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

MLA Formatting Quotations

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Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

When you directly quote the works of others in your paper, you will format quotations differently depending on their length. Below are some basic guidelines for incorporating quotations into your paper. Please note that all pages in MLA should be double-spaced .

Short quotations

To indicate short quotations (four typed lines or fewer of prose or three lines of verse) in your text, enclose the quotation within double quotation marks. Provide the author and specific page number (in the case of verse, provide line numbers) in the in-text citation, and include a complete reference on the Works Cited page. Punctuation marks such as periods, commas, and semicolons should appear after the parenthetical citation.

Question marks and exclamation points should appear within the quotation marks if they are a part of the quoted passage, but after the parenthetical citation if they are a part of your text.

For example, when quoting short passages of prose, use the following examples:

When using short (fewer than three lines of verse) quotations from poetry, mark breaks in verse with a slash, ( / ), at the end of each line of verse (a space should precede and follow the slash). If a stanza break occurs during the quotation, use a double slash ( // ).

Long quotations

For quotations that are more than four lines of prose or three lines of verse, place quotations in a free-standing block of text and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, with the entire quote indented 1/2   inch  from the left margin while maintaining double-spacing. Your parenthetical citation should come  after the closing punctuation mark . When quoting verse, maintain original line breaks. (You should maintain double-spacing throughout your essay.)

For example, when citing more than four lines of prose, use the following examples :

Nelly Dean treats Heathcliff poorly and dehumanizes him throughout her narration: They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room, and I had no more sense, so, I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it would be gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he found it on quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house. (Bronte 78)

When citing long sections of poetry (four lines of verse or more), keep formatting as close to the original as possible.

In his poem "My Papa's Waltz," Theodore Roethke explores his childhood with his father:

The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We Romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. (qtd. in Shrodes, Finestone, Shugrue 202)

When citing two or more paragraphs, use block quotation format, even if the passage from the paragraphs is less than four lines. If you cite more than one paragraph, the first line of the second paragraph should be indented an extra 1/4 inch to denote a new paragraph:

In "American Origins of the Writing-across-the-Curriculum Movement," David Russell argues,

Writing has been an issue in American secondary and higher education since papers and examinations came into wide use in the 1870s, eventually driving out formal recitation and oral examination. . . .

From its birth in the late nineteenth century, progressive education has wrestled with the conflict within industrial society between pressure to increase specialization of knowledge and of professional work (upholding disciplinary standards) and pressure to integrate more fully an ever-widening number of citizens into intellectually meaningful activity within mass society (promoting social equity). . . . (3)

Adding or omitting words in quotations

If you add a word or words in a quotation, you should put brackets around the words to indicate that they are not part of the original text:

If you omit a word or words from a quotation, you should indicate the deleted word or words by using ellipses, which are three periods ( . . . ) preceded and followed by a space. For example:

Please note that brackets are not needed around ellipses unless they would add clarity.

When omitting words from poetry quotations, use a standard three-period ellipses; however, when omitting one or more full lines of poetry, space several periods to about the length of a complete line in the poem:

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Reproductive rights in America

What abortion politics has to do with new rights for pregnant workers.

Selena Simmons-Duffin

Employers are required to make accommodations for pregnant women and new moms like time off for doctor's appointments. Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images hide caption

Employers are required to make accommodations for pregnant women and new moms like time off for doctor's appointments.

This week, attorneys general from 17 Republican-led states sued the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over something they say is an "abortion accommodation mandate."

Here are four things to know about the latest battle in the war over abortion between Republican-led states and the Biden administration.

1. The law in question is about protections for pregnant workers.

First, a little background: In 2015, a survey found that nearly 1 in 4 women went back to work just two weeks after giving birth.

It took about ten years for a bill protecting pregnant workers to get through Congress, and in 2022, not long after Roe v. Wade was overturned, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act passed with bipartisan support. The law requires employers with at least 15 employees to accommodate workers who are pregnant with things like extra bathroom breaks, time off for prenatal appointments, a chair for sitting during a shift. It also says employers have to accommodate workers after they give birth.

Even though lawmakers from both parties think pregnancy protections are a good thing, abortion politics have overshadowed the news of those new rights. It all comes down to one line in the law and the word "abortion" in the regulation.

The law says employers should make "reasonable accommodations" for pregnant workers during and after "pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions." The new rule EEOC put out to implement the law includes abortion in a lengthy list of "related medical conditions," along with everything from ectopic pregnancy to anxiety to varicose veins.

2. Abortion entered the chat and about 100,000 people chimed in on the regulations.

Political and religious groups that oppose abortion rights took notice of the inclusion of "abortion" in the list of related medical conditions, as did the lead Republican co-sponsor of the law , Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Some 54,000 people commented on the proposed rule objecting to the inclusion of abortion, according to the EEOC's analysis in the final rule, while 40,000 people commented in support of abortion's inclusion. (The agency noted that most of these were nearly identical "form comments" driven by advocacy groups).

In the end, "abortion" remained on the list. In its analysis, the agency explained that abortion's inclusion is consistent with longstanding interpretation of civil rights laws and courts' rulings. In the final rule, the EEOC says the law "does not require any employee to have – or not to have – an abortion, does not require taxpayers to pay for any abortions, and does not compel health care providers to provide any abortions." The rule also notes that unpaid time off for appointments is the most likely accommodation that would be sought by workers having abortions.

3. The lawsuit + the politics of the lawsuit

Within days of the rule being published in the Federal Register , a coalition of 17 Republican-led states filed suit. "The implications of mandating abortion accommodations are immense: covered employers would be required to support and devote resources, including by providing extra leave time, to assist employees' decision to terminate fetal life," the lawsuit reads .

The lawsuit was filed on Thursday in federal court in Eastern Arkansas. The plaintiffs ask the court to put a hold on the effective date of the final rule pending judicial review, and to temporarily block the enforcement of – and ultimately vacate – the rule's "abortion-accommodation mandate."

Arkansas and Tennessee are the two states leading the lawsuit. In a statement , Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said: "This is yet another attempt by the Biden administration to force through administrative fiat what it cannot get passed through Congress."

Griffin said the rule is a "radical interpretation" of the new pregnancy protection law that would leave employers subject to federal lawsuits if they don't give employees time off for abortions, even if abortions are illegal in those states. "The PWFA was meant to protect pregnancies, not end them," he said.

Women's advocates see the politics of the lawsuit as well. "It's no coincidence that this organized, partisan effort is occurring in states that have some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country," Jocelyn Frye of the National Partnership for Women & Families wrote in a statement . "Any attempt to dismantle these protections will have serious consequences for women's health, working families, and the ability for women to thrive in the workplace."

Greer Donley is a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who submitted a comment on the proposed regulation defending the inclusion of abortion. She points out that this is the latest in a string of legal challenges from anti-abortion groups fighting the Biden administration's efforts to protect abortion using federal agencies.

"You can really see this in a suite of [abortion] lawsuits – including the two that were heard in the Supreme Court this term, one involving the FDA's regulation of mifepristone and one involving the Biden administration's interpretation of EMTALA ," she observes, and guesses a legal challenge will also come in response to the newly announced privacy protections for patients who've had abortions. "You have a Supreme Court that is overwhelmingly anti-abortion and overwhelmingly anti-administrative state – those two things in tandem are not a good thing for the Biden administration."

4. In the meantime, pregnant workers have new rights.

At the moment, until a judge says otherwise, the new protections for pregnant workers are already in effect. The EEOC has a guide for pregnant workers about their new rights under the law and how to file charges against their employers. It's also holding trainings for human resource professionals on how to comply with the law.

Complaints have already started to roll in. In a statement to NPR, EEOC spokesperson Victor Chen wrote that in the first three months that the law was in effect, the agency received nearly 200 charges alleging a violation of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which works out to nearly two a day.

• pregnancy discrimination
• Abortion rights