Citing Policy Law in APA Style

Citing law in any type of formal writing may cause a little head scratching to occur. It is a bit more involved then the book and author citations that are easy to remember. However, law citations tend to follow a pattern similar to that used by the standard book and reference citations. APA writing guidelines follow a pattern of their own. Regardless of the style you use, just think of policy law citations as a way to let your readers know exactly where the information used in your paper originated.

Section 1 Bibliography Citation

1. Cite government legislation, reports and other documents using the distinctions for the legislative body issuing the writings and the appropriate abbreviations found in the "Resources" section. The next steps lay out the order in which each piece of the APA citation must appear.

2. Enter title of the document, or hearing followed by a period. Titles are used when citing congressional hearings and bills. Use the official title. Length of title does not matter. For reports and documents, the series name and number used to catalogue the documents is used. Close the section with a period if placing a title or a comma after report and document identification. For example, a report to the Speaker of the House from a committee within the 112^th House of Representatives during its 23 session in 2008 would be designated as H.Rep. 23,

3. Identify the number of the Congress in session. Enter the abbreviation No. followed by the number of Congress followed by the abbreviation for Congress, which is Cong. Close this section with a comma. As stated in the example, the 112^th Congress is the subject of the report. Your citation should now read. H. Rep. 23, No. 112th Cong.,

4. Locate the session number on the report. It will be on the top of the first page. Enter the session number after the comma followed by the abbreviation Sess. No punctuation needed other than the period in the abbreviation. Here's the citation now, using the example report

H. Rep. 23, No. 112^th Cong., 23^rd Sess.

5. Find the page number on which your cited materials appear. Place the number after the period in the abbreviation Sess. In our example, the material is located on page 26, making your citation: H. Rep. 23, No. 112^th Cong., 23^rd Sess. 26. No punctuation is needed after the page number.

6. Enter the year the report was created in parenthesis at the end of the citation, followed by a period. Your final citation, using the example year of 2008, should be H. Rep. 23, No. 112^th Cong., 23^rd Sess. 26 (2008).

Section 2 In-text Citation

1. Enter the abbreviation of the name of the governing body producing the document and the type of document identified on the top of first page. The example document is a report drafted by the U.S. House of Representatives, so the first part of the citation will be an open parenthesis followed by House Report. The citation should look like this: (H.R. Rep

2. Place the report number after the abbreviation No. Follow the number with a comma. The example citation is now, (H.R. Rep. 23,

3. End the citation with the year it was created and a closed parenthesis. Your final in-text citation is (H.R. Rep. 23, 2008).

Tips:

When the congressional body's name, document identification and number are already used in the sentence, insert the year in parenthesis as the only necessary in-text citation, like this (2008).