Citing an Executive Order in APA Style

Citing an executive order in APA Style is easy using Reference Point Software, however, collecting the information you need for the citation can be challenging. This article will describe how to find the information you need to cite an executive order.

Start with the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Suppose you want to cite executive order number 13649 “Accelerating Improvements in HIV Prevention and Care.” Visit the U.S. Government Publishing OfficeΓÇÖs online CFR which you can find here:
http://www.gpo.gov/example

Select the correct year to get a list of executive orders. For this example, the year is 2014 is selected.

Searching the Code of Federal Regulations

Use your browserΓÇÖs Find feature (usually accessed by hitting Ctrl-F) and search for HIV.

Executive order found in CFR

Open the PDF. Make note of the name of the executive order, the order number, the year, and the page number. In the below example ΓÇ£317ΓÇ¥ is the page number. ΓÇ£13649ΓÇ¥ is the executive order number.

Executive order displayed in the CFR

If the executive order is documented in the United States Code (U.S.C.) then you should include volume, section, page, and year from the U.S.C. In this example “300cc-1” is the section, 78 is the volume, and 43057 is the page.

Executive order in the U.S.C

The last step is to enter the information into Reference Point Software’s data entry screen for executive orders. You will then get a perfectly formatted APA Style reference. To enter a reference to an executive order click on the APA tab, click More, click Executive Order.

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