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Reference guide for APA 7th edition

Reference guide for APA 7th edition intended for students at the department of Biology and CEC, Lund University. NB! If you access the guide using a smartphone, the text will open below the menu.

Government agency regulations

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NB! The APA (7th edition) manual does not contain any specific instructions on how to refer to laws and regulations outside of the United States. The recommendation is instead to format the references according to guidelines in each country. According to Swedish legal practice, you use the official abbreviation for a legal document as your in-text reference and you do not provide a reference in the reference list. Please note that we have chosen to depart from this practice in our instructions by adding a reference in the reference list with information that will help the reader find the source, since the target audience of the texts produced at our departments are usually not legal practitioners. The instructions under this section are our interpretation of how to apply APA (7th edition) to government agency regulations (myndigheternas föreskrifter).

When citing government agency regulations, you should make it clear to the reader what type of document you are referring to by including either the title or a description of the document together with the in-text reference the first time you cite the source. The government agency regulations are found in the respective agencies code of statutes (författningssamling). Regulations are regularly updated, and accessing the publications online on the agencies websites is a good way to make sure that you cite the latest version. If you accessed the regulation online, include the URL of the website from which it was retrieved in the reference.

Do not forget to consult the general instructions on how to write references according to APA (7th edition), including 

Template for how to format references to government agency regulations in the reference list

Code of statutes YYYY:Number. Title. URL

Examples of in-text references to government agency regulations

According to 6 § of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency's guidelines on the monitoring of air quality (NFS 2019:9)…

The guidelines on ventilation from the Public Health Agency of Sweden (FoHMFS 2014:18) state that... 

The proclamation of regulations within the nature reserve Linneröd in the Municipality of Klippan (12FS 2019:3) regulates..

Examples of references to government agency regulations in the reference list

12FS 2019:3. Kungörelse om föreskrifter inom naturreservatet Linneröd i Klippans kommun [Proclamation of regulations within the nature reserve Linneröd in the Municipality of Klippan]. https://www.lansstyrelsen.se/download/18.2c30d6f167c5e8e7c025b08/1550130639696/fs2019-03%20Naturreservat.pdf

FoHMFS 2014:18. Folkhälsomyndighetens allmänna råd om ventilation [The Public Health Agency of Sweden's general advice on ventilation]. https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/641784832543443ea4eebe9b300c244e/fohmfs-2014-18.pdf

NFS 2019:9. Naturvårdsverkets föreskrifter om kontroll av luftkvalitet [The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency's guidelines on the monitoring of air quality]. http://www.naturvardsverket.se/Documents/foreskrifter/nfs2019/nfs-2019-9.pdf