How to Cite an Organization: APA Seventh Edition, by Jason Horn on YouTube. 5 min 24 s.
- Video length
- 5 min 24 s
- Time to do it
- 10 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Steps
- 9
What you need
Steps
Check who is responsible for the content. If a company, government agency or association wrote it and no person is named, treat that group as the author.
Decide on an abbreviation. Use one only if you will cite the group at least three times in your paper, and pick the well-known short form such as APA or WHO.
Write the first in-text citation with the full name, the abbreviation in square brackets and the year, like this: (American Psychological Association [APA], 2020).
Use only the abbreviation in later citations: (APA, 2020). In a narrative citation, write American Psychological Association (APA, 2020) the first time.
Start the reference entry with the full organization name spelled out, followed by a period. Do not put the abbreviation there.
Add the year in parentheses, then a period. Use (n.d.) if there is no date, and add the month and day for news or blog posts.
Add the title in sentence case and italics, then the site name if it differs from the author, then the URL.
Leave out the publisher when it is the same as the author. For a report, put the report number in parentheses after the title.
File the entry in your alphabetical reference list under the first significant word of the organization name, skipping words like The.
Tips and common mistakes
Do not swap the abbreviation into the reference list, since readers match entries by the full name.
If the organization name and the website name are identical, drop the site name to avoid repeating yourself.
For government agencies, start with the country or state name, such as U.S. Department of Labor, and keep that form consistent.
If a person and an organization are both credited as authors, list the person first.
Questions
Do I use the abbreviation in the reference list?
No. Spell the organization out in full in the reference list and save the abbreviation for your in-text citations.
What if the organization's page has no date?
Use (n.d.) in place of the year in both the in-text citation and the reference entry.
How do I cite two organizations with the same abbreviation?
Spell both names out in the first citations and use the full name or a clearly different short form for each one afterwards.
This guide was drafted from the video's details and general task knowledge. It has not been checked against the full video. Check the video and relevant product instructions before following a procedure. Report a correction.
