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Citation Guide: Government Documents

Formatting

Note: For your Works Cited list, all citations should be double spaced and have a hanging indent.

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

Tips

Access Date

Works from the web can typically be changed or removed at any time, so while it's optional, the date which you accessed material is often important.  This is especially true when there is no date specifying when an item was produced.This date will be added to the end of the entry. E.g. Accessed 23 July 2016.

Dates

The format of dates is: Day Month (shortened) Year. E.g. 5 Sept. 2012.

Whether to give the year alone or include a month and day depends on your source: write the full date as you find it there.

If no date is listed, omit it unless you can find that information available in a reliable source.

Titles

Capitalize the first letter of every important word in the title. You do not need to capitalize words such as: in, of, or an.

If there is a colon (:) in the title, include what comes after the colon (also known as the subtitle).

Government Document From a Website

Title of Document: Subtitle if Given. Edition if given and is not first edition, Name of Government Department, Agency or Committee, Publication Date, URL. Accessed Access Date.

Works Cited List Example

 Highlights from the Competition Bureau’s Workshop on Emerging Competition Issues. Competition Bureau of Canada, 4 Mar. 2016, www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/vwapj/cb-Workshop-Summary-Report-e.pdf/$FILE/cb-Workshop-Summary-Report-e.pdf. Accessed 6 July 2016.

In-Text Citation Example

 (Title of Document)

 Example: (Highlights)

 Note: You can use a shortened form of the title by listing the first word or words of the full title.

Government Document in Print

Title of Document: Subtitle if Given. Edition if given and is not first edition, Name of Government Department, Agency or Committee, Publication Date.

Works Cited List Example

 Women in Canada: A Gender-based Statistical Report. 7th ed., Statistics Canada, 2015. 

In-Text Citation Example

 (Title)

 Example: (Women in Canada 4)

 Note: You can use a shortened form of the title by listing the first word or words of the full title.

United Nations International School, Hanoi