Volume and issue
Also called: volume, issue, number
The numbering that locates a journal article within a periodical's run: the volume is usually the year's worth, the issue a single instalment.
A journal reference gives volume and, where the journal has them, issue: 12(3) means volume 12, issue 3. APA italicises the volume and leaves the bracketed issue upright — a small distinction that is nonetheless one of the most frequently missed rules in APA references.
Some journals paginate continuously across a volume, in which case the issue number is redundant and several styles drop it. Others have moved to article numbers instead of page ranges, which is why newer references sometimes end in something like “e0298114” rather than a page span.
See also
Page rangeThe first and last page of a work inside a larger container, given in the reference entry rather than the in-text citation.Container titleThe name of the larger work a source sits inside: the journal holding an article, the book holding a chapter, the site holding a page.ISSNAn eight-digit identifier for a serial publication — a journal, magazine, or newspaper — rather than for any single article.