Answered By: Jackie Stevens
Last Updated: Jul 01, 2022     Views: 1072

It can be difficult to determine authors for government documents - individual authors are rarely named, and often the document is a result of a group effort.

Generally, the author is named either on the title or first few pages of the document, or on the final page. It is likely that the author will be an organisation or "corporate" author - such as a department, committee, or taskforce - unless specific individuals are listed. Include only the organisation's name in full, e.g. Department of Social Services, not the parent organisation, such as "Government of Australia" or "Commonwealth of Australia".

You may add the parent organisation information if the group author(s) are not well known, and to provide context, listing the bigger department first, e.g. Western Australian Department of Health, Western Australian Breast Cancer Registry.

For more information on referencing government documents, please visit the links below.