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How to Cite a General Statute in APA Text Format

Statutes are a formal enactment of a governmental policy that can be written on a country, state, county or city level. Most statutes state a policy, or command or prohibit actions. The citing format developed by the American Psychological Association (APA) has a distinct set of rules for how to cite statutes. You will need to cite the statute both as an in-text citation and in the bibliography. Moreover, some statutes are found in the U.S. Code, while others are published as a Statute at Large. The statutes are cited slightly differently depending on where they are found.

Instructions

- 1
  Cite the name of the statute in the text of the paper for an in-text citation and the year it was passed in parentheses. For example: The Wildlife Preservation Act is a key policy for founding our national parks (2008).
- 2
  Cite the statute in the bibliography as part of the U.S. Code with the name of the statute, the section and volume number, the section of the Code it is found in and the year the statute was passed. For example: Wildlife Preservation Act § 24, 36 U.S.C. § 3990 (1989).
- 3
  Cite the statute in the bibliography if it is part of the Statutes at Large with the name of the act, the publishing number, the section number, the volume number, the page number and the year it was passed. For example: Wildlife Preservation Act of 1997, Pub. L. No. 208-49, §5, 87 Stat. 256 (1998).

How to Cite a Reprinted Work in an Anthology in APA

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