How do I cite a journal article that only has an article number in Chicago Style?
Answer
This question reflects guidance provided in both the 17th and 18th editions of Chicago Style as no changes were made in the new edition.
Many journals, but especially online only journals, have stopped assigning unique page numbers to PDFs of their articles and instead assign the entire article a number.
Article numbers can have many different formats to them, here are some examples
- e19019080
- 65
- 200245012
- sg2345
While the PDF will be numbered starting with 1, these are not the official page numbers. Chicago Style recommends that these numbers should be used only in footnotes and not in the bibliography citations. Only the article number should appear in the bibliography citations.
Footnote
1 Author First Name Author Last Name, “Article Title,” Journal Name volume number, no. issue number (publication year): page number, article number. DOI/URL.
1 JessicaTait, Humberto Perotto-Baldivieso, Adam McKeown, and David A. Westcott, "Are Flying-Foxes Coming to Town? Urbanisation of the Spectacled Flying-Fox (Pteropus Conspicillatus) in Australia," PLoS One 9, no. 10 (2014): 2, e109810. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0109810.
Bibliography
Author Last Name, Author First Name. “Article Title.” Journal Name volume number, no. issue number (publication year): article number. DOI/URL.
Tait, Jessica, Humberto Perotto-Baldivieso, Adam McKeown, and David A. Westcott. "Are Flying-Foxes Coming to Town? Urbanisation of the Spectacled Flying-Fox (Pteropus Conspicillatus) in Australia." PLoS One 9, no. 10 (2014): e109810. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0109810.
If you need further help, contact a librarian