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APA 7th ed. Citation Guide: Government Documents

Contains the latest changes and updates to APA Style

Missing Information?

Some sources, such as websites, may not have the full information to create a citation.  APA has guidelines for dealing with missing components of a citation, both in-text and reference entry.

Tips

Author

Government Documents often have a group/corporate author listed instead of a specific person's name. The author may be the name of a department, commitee or agency.

When the government department, agency or committee that created the document is also the publisher, put the word Author where you'd normally put the publisher name.

Titles

Capitalize the first letter of the first word of the title. If there is a colon (:) in the title, also capitalize the first letter of the first word after the colon.

Capitalize the first letter of proper names in titles, such as names of places or people. Example: Canada

Place of Publication

For cities in the US and Canada list the city name and the province or state code. For other countries, list the city name and the country. Examples: Toronto, ON ; Tokyo, Japan

Electronic Government Documents

Many government documents are now published electronically as well as in print. Don't include the place of publication or a publisher for an electronic book (ebook). Instead provide the url and the date you last viewed the document.

Government Documents

Reference page citation: 

Name of Government Department, Agency or Committee. (Year of Publication, Month Day). Title of document: Subtitle if given (edition if given and is not first edition). Publisher Name. http://www.xxxxxx

Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services. (2010, April 27). Your preschool child's speech and language development. http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/topics/earlychildhood/ speechlanguage/brochure_preschool.aspx

In-Text:

Paraphrase:  (Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services, 2010)

Quote:             (Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services, 2010, By Age Five section, para. 4)

Rules:

When the government department, agency or committee that created the document is also the publisher, omit the publisher.

For In-Text citations, if there are no visible page numbers or paragraph numbers, you may cite the section heading and the number of the paragraph in that section to identify where your quote came from. In the above example there is only one paragraph under the specific heading, so no paragraph number is needed.

Reference page citation: 

Name of Government Department, Agency or Committee. (Year of Publication). Title of document: Subtitle if given (edition if given and is not first edition). Publication City, Province, State or Country: Publisher Name.

Health Council of Canada. (2007). Canadians' experience with chronic illness care in 2007. 

In-Text:

Paraphrase:  (Health Council of Canada, 2007)

Quote:             (Health Council of Canada, 2007, p. 4)

Rules:

When the government department, agency or committee that created the document is also the publisher, omit the publisher.

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