APA 7th Style: Reports & Gov docs

UON Library guide for the APA 7th referencing style

Research and technical reports

General rules:

Author Names	Many reports are authored by organisational departments, units or agencies - if so, include them as 'corporate authors' as the first element in the reference. The author/s should be recorded as they appeared when the document was published, whether in print or online – not amended to their current organisational title.
Report Titles and Numbers	Report titles appear in full (including any sub-title), and in italics. Capitalise the first words of title and sub-title, along with any proper nouns. Include report numbers (if available) in brackets after the title. Do not italicise this section.
Place of Publication	No longer required. This is a major revision for APA 7.
Publisher	Publisher information is now required for reports, regardless of format. This is a major revision for APA 7. Where multiple publishers are noted, add them in order, separated by a semicolon (e.g. American Heart Association; The Heart Foundation.) Where the author and the publisher are the same, leave out the publisher information to avoid repetition.
Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs)	If a resource is assigned a DOI, this alphanumeric sequence is required to be added to the reference. Check the What are DOIs? page for more information. For formatting purposes, DOIs must be formatted in APA 7 references as the link version, e.g. "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2004.03.029". Do not include a full-stop after the DOI at the end of the reference.
Access URLs	APA 7 does not require the statement "Retrieved from ..." for reports. Include the full access link for the report. Do not include a full-stop after the URL at the end of the reference.

Reports (including the Company and Industry reports)

Online report authored by a person	Author Surname, Initial. (Year). *Title of report: Subtitle* (Report No. X). Publisher. https://...
Online report with a corporate author	Corporate Author. (Year). *Title of report: Subtitle* (Report No. X). https://... Where the author is the same as the publisher, do not repeat the publisher name
Print report authored by a person	Author Surname, Initial. (Year). *Title of report: Subtitle* (Report No. X). Publisher.
Print report with a corporate author	Corporate Author. (Year). *Title of report: Subtitle* (Report No. X). Where the author is the same as the publisher, do not repeat the publisher name
Print or online report with a DOI	Follow the patterns above but end the reference with the link form of the DOI. See the Active Healthy Kids Australia entry below for an example.
Business Reports	Click to see instructions on citing Company and Industry reports

Reference list examples:

Active Healthy Kids Australia. (2016). Physical literacy: Do our kids have all the tools? 2016 report card on physical activity for children and young people. https://doi.org/10.4226/78/57AAD6BD49165

Babor, T. F., Higgins-Biddle, J. C., Saunders, J. B., & Monteiro, M. G. (2001). The alcohol use disorders identification test: Guidelines for use in primary care. World Health Organisation. http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2001/who_msd_msb_01.6a.pdf

Kitson, A., Conroy, T., Kuluski, K., Locock, L., & Lyons, R. (2013). Reclaiming and redefining the fundamentals of care: Nursing’s response to meeting patients’ basic human needs (Research Report No. 2). University of Adelaide.

Queensland Health. (2005). Health systems review: Final report.

United Nations. (2013). The Millennium Development Goals report 2013. http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/report-2013/mdg-report-2013-english.pdf

In-text

Every time you paraphrase, or use an idea from another source you must include an in-text citation to that source.
Follow the general patterns: (Author Surname, Year) or (Corporate Author, Year)

Example:

Australian education providers will need to address a number of challenges to ensure standards of special education are fully supporting students with special needs and their families (University of Melbourne, 2012).

Where a corporate author's name is known by a common acronym (e.g. AIHW for Australian Institute for Health and Welfare) and you will be using this author multiple times in your text, you can use the following pattern.

For the first in-text citation, include the full name plus the acronym in square brackets, in the format: (Corporate Author [CA], Year)

Example:

"Over half of people aged 15 years and older (56%) considered their overall health to be very good or excellent, and 29% stated that their health was good" (Australian Institute for Health and Welfare [AIHW], 2018, p. 3).

In subsequent in-text citations, include just the acronym: (CA, Year)

Example:
... 19% of people aged 18 years and over were current daily smokers (AIHW, 2018).

Direct Quotations

If you include a direct quote, that is word-for-word from a source, add a page reference to your in-text citation, e.g.:

“These films absorb, through a collage of images, traces of the Italian inheritance of neo-realist cinema” (Acciari, 2014, p. 14).

NOTE: Use "p" when quoting from one page - for example (Acciari, 2014, p. 14), and "pp" when quoting from more than one page - for example (Wessel, 2015, pp. 53-54).

Company and Industry reports

Notes:

For a company annual report, use the company as the author (corporate author).
For a report by a personal author, include the publisher.
If a report has a report number, include it in brackets after the title.
Add a description of the report [in square brackets] if it is not apparent from title.
Use the full date if available.
For reports only available in library subscription databases, use the database as the publisher and the home page of the database as the URL.
If the author and the publisher is the same organisation, leave out the publisher information to avoid repetition.

Examples:

Company annual reports from the web

BHP. (2022). BHP Annual Report 2022: Bringing people and resources together to build a better world. https://www.bhp.com/-/media/documents/investors/annual-reports/2022/220906_bhpannualreport2022.pdf

Company reports from library database - DatAnalysis Premium

Morningstar. (2023, April 4). Harvey Norman Holdings Ltd [Company report]. DatAnalysis Premium. https://datanalysis.morningstar.com.au/

Country and company reports from library database - Marketline

MarketLine. (2022, June 22). Country analysis report: Singapore, In-depth PESTLE insights (Report Code: ML00002-024). http://www.marketline.com

MarketLine. (2023, March). Nestlé: Company analysis (Report Code: MLCS0004-004). http://www.marketline.com

Industry reports from library database - IBISWorld

Ezhova, E. (2022, December 02). Sports Instructors in Australia (Australia Industry (ANZSIC) Report P8211). IBISWorld. http://ibisworld.com

Market reports from library database - Euromonitor

Euromonitor. (2023, March). Retail e-commerce in Australia: Prospects and opportunities. https://www.euromonitor.com/

White papers

General Notes:

A white paper is a short document that presents an organisation’s philosophy, position, or policy on a particular issue. These documents are usually found via the organisation's website (or Google search).
White papers follow a similar format to a report but require the description [White paper] to be added after the title (unless already part of the title).
Titles of white papers should always be italicised.
If you cannot locate a date on the document use the abbreviation (n.d.) in place of the year.
Online documents are considered 'static' by APA standards and therefore do not require the words 'Retrieved from' before an access link. This is a major revision for APA 7.
Do not include a full-stop after the URL at the end of the reference.
APA allows for links to be either plain text or 'active'. See the official APA Style Blog for more information.

Paper authored by a person

Author Surname, Initial. (Year). Title of paper [Description]. Publisher. https://...

Paper with a corporate author

Corporate Author. (Year). Title of paper [Description]. https://...

Where the author is the same as the publisher, do not repeat the publisher name

Reference list examples:

Australian Psychological Society. (2019). The future of psychology in Australia: A blueprint for better mental health outcomes for all Australians through Medicare [White paper]. https://www.psychology.org.au/getmedia/a1c6fc1f-8356-471c-9247-36832da61299/APS-White-Paper-The-Future-of-Psychology-in-Australia-June-2019-FINAL.pdf

Furst, M., & DeMillo, R. A. (2006). Creating symphonic-thinking computer science graduates for an increasingly competitive global environment [White paper]. Georgia Tech College of Computing. http://www.cc.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/Threads%20 Whitepaper.pdf

In-text

Every time you paraphrase, or use an idea from another source you must include an in-text citation to that source.
Follow the general patterns: (Author Surname, Year) or (Corporate Author, Year)

Example:

Direct Quotations

If you include a direct quote, that is word-for-word from a source, add a page reference to your in-text citation, e.g.:

“These films absorb, through a collage of images, traces of the Italian inheritance of neo-realist cinema” (Acciari, 2014, p. 14).

NOTE: Use "p" when quoting from one page - for example (Acciari, 2014, p. 14), and "pp" when quoting from more than one page - for example (Wessel, 2015, pp. 53-54).

Government documents and reports

For press releases, policy briefs and directives, fact sheets, pamphlets, etc., refer to the Web resources page.

General rules:

Author Names	Many government documents are authored by departments, units or agencies - APA refers to these as 'corporate authors'. If this is the case for your document, include the department / unit / agency as the first element in the reference. Do not include the government jurisdiction / level in the reference – such as the federal or state government. Use only the department, unit or agency name. For example, 'Australian Government Department of Education and Training' would be 'Department of Education and Training'. Note that if the name of the state is part of the department name – e.g. Queensland Health – then it should be included. Record the author/s as they appear on the document, whether in print or online – do not amend to their current department, unit, or agency title.
Report Titles and Numbers	Government document titles appear in full (including any sub-title), and in italics. Capitalise the first words of title and sub-title, along with any proper nouns. Include report numbers (if available) in brackets after the title. Do not italicise this section.
Place of Publication	No longer required. This is a major revision for APA 7.
Publisher	Publisher information is now required for reports, regardless of format. This is a major revision for APA 7. Where multiple publishers are noted, add them in order, separated by a semicolon (e.g. NSW Health; Queensland Health.) Where the author and the publisher are the same, leave out the publisher information to avoid repetition.
Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs)	If a resource is assigned a DOI, this alphanumeric sequence is required to be added to the reference. Check the What are DOIs? page for more information. For formatting purposes, DOIs must be formatted in APA 7 references as the link version, e.g. "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2004.03.029". Do not include a full-stop after the DOI at the end of the reference.
Access URLs	APA 7 does not require the statement "Retrieved from ..." for government documents. Include the full access link for the document. Do not include a full-stop after the URL at the end of the reference.

Government documents and reports

Online document authored by a person	Author Surname, Initial. (Year). *Title of document: Subtitle* (Document No. X). Government Department. https://...
Online document with a government author	Government Department. (Year). *Title of document: Subtitle* (Document No. X). https://... Where the author is the same as the publisher, do not repeat the publisher name
Print document authored by a person	Author Surname, Initial. (Year). *Title of document: Subtitle* (Document No. X). Government Department.
Print document with a government author	Government Department. (Year). *Title of document: Subtitle* (Document No. X). Where the author is the same as the publisher, do not repeat the publisher name
Print or online document with a DOI	Follow the patterns above but end the reference with the link form of the DOI. See the Reports tab for an example.

Reference list examples:

Agency for Clinical Innovation. (2011). Maternity: Management of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (Document No. PD2011_064). NSW Health. https://www1.health.nsw.gov.au/pds/ActivePDSDocuments/PD2011_064.pdf

Australian Institute of Health Welfare. (2021). Australian burden of disease study: Impact and causes of illness and death in Australia 2018 (Catalogue number BOD 29). https://doi.org/10.25816/5ps1-j259

Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. (2021). Future fuels and vehicle strategy. https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/November%202021/document/future-fuels-and-vehicles-strategy.pdf

National health and Medical Research Council, Australian Research Council, & Universities Australia. (2018). National statement on ethical conduct in human research 2007 (Updated May 2018). https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/guidelines-publications/e72

The last example above shows how to format multiple department authors.

In-text

Every time you paraphrase, or use an idea from another source you must include an in-text citation to that source.
Follow the general patterns: (Author Surname, Year) or (Government Department, Year)

Example:

For the first in-text citation, include the full name plus the acronym in square brackets, in the format: (Corporate Author [CA], Year)

Example:

In subsequent in-text citations, include just the acronym: (CA, Year)

Example:
... 19% of people aged 18 years and over were current daily smokers (AIHW, 2018).

Direct Quotations

If you include a direct quote, that is word-for-word from a source, add a page reference to your in-text citation, e.g.:

“These films absorb, through a collage of images, traces of the Italian inheritance of neo-realist cinema” (Acciari, 2014, p. 14).

NOTE: Use "p" when quoting from one page - for example (Acciari, 2014, p. 14), and "pp" when quoting from more than one page - for example (Wessel, 2015, pp. 53-54).

Pamphlets and brochures (print)

A number of organisations still publish print pamphlets and brochures.

For referencing information and examples, refer to the Health Resources page.

Pamphlets and brochures (online)

For pamphlets and brochures found online, refer to the Web resources page.

Help and Information

Help and Information

UON Referencing Guide