Social Work 334: Social Policy
Citing Public Laws in APA style
The APA Style Manual does not give an example for citing Public Laws (slip laws), so the librarians have put together this recommendation for how to cite Public Laws in your bibliography and in your in-text citations. This recommendation follows the format that APA gives for an enacted federal bill or resolution (page 222 in the 6th edition; page 407 in the 5th edition), but does not require you to find the enacted version of the bill in the Congressional Record.
For our example, we will use Public Law 95-261 (the 261st law passed by the 95th Congress). This law was enacted in 1978.
In your bibliography, the law would be cited as:
PL 95-261, (1978). Retrieved from http://thomas.loc.gov
Your in-text citation would look like this:
(PL 95-261, 1978)
If you have questions about this recommendation, please ask a librarian!