How to Cite an Organization as the Author (Group Author)

Quick Answer: cite an organization as the author

Put the organization's full name in the author position exactly where a person's name would go. APA 7 spells the name out in the reference list and may introduce an abbreviation in square brackets the first time it appears in the text. MLA 9 also uses the full name, but when the same organization is the author and the publisher, MLA drops the author and begins the entry with the title. Chicago 18 lists the organization as author in notes, bibliography, and author-date entries even when it is also the publisher.

Is the organization really the author?

A group author is the organization that takes responsibility for the content, not every organization whose logo appears on the cover. Reports often name a person on the title page and the organization only as publisher; grant-funded studies name a funder that wrote nothing. Settle the author question before you format anything.

1. Read the title page, cover, and "suggested citation" box. If a person is named as author, cite the person and treat the organization as the publisher.
2. If no person is named and the organization presents the work as its own, the organization is the author. A WHO report, a Pew Research Center survey, and an ISO standard all qualify.
3. Distinguish the author from the sponsor. "Prepared for the Ford Foundation by RAND" makes RAND the author, not the Ford Foundation.
4. For a government document, note the most specific agency that issued it and its parent departments. The three styles place those names differently.
5. Check whether the author and the publisher are the same body. That single fact changes the MLA entry and the APA source element.

If the search turns up no person and no responsible organization, the work is genuinely authorless and the title moves first; see how to cite a source with no author. If the work names several people and an organization, the people are the authors. For three or more personal authors, follow how to cite multiple authors.

APA 7: spell out the group, abbreviate in the text

APA's group authors page and Publication Manual §9.11 set two rules. The reference list always carries the full name of the group, never its abbreviation. In the text you may abbreviate a group with a well-known or frequently used abbreviation, but you introduce that abbreviation in square brackets inside the first citation and then use it alone.

The publisher is missing from that reference on purpose. WHO wrote the report and WHO published it, so repeating the name would add nothing; the source element is just the URL. If the report carried a report number, it would follow the title in parentheses: Global tuberculosis report 2020 (WHO/UCN/TB/2020.1).

When to introduce an abbreviation

Abbreviating is optional, and APA's general abbreviation rule in §6.25 applies: an abbreviation earns its place only when the reader will meet it again. The brackets go inside the first citation of that group, whether parenthetical or narrative, and nowhere else.

• Abbreviate when the full name is long and you cite the group three or more times, or when the abbreviation is better known than the name (APA, CDC, NASA, UNESCO).
• Spell the name out every time if you cite the group only once or twice. (National Institute of Mental Health, 2018) twice is clearer than an abbreviation the reader has to remember.
• Introduce the abbreviation once per paper, not once per section. After (World Health Organization [WHO], 2020) every later citation is (WHO, 2020), even for a different WHO report.
• Keep the reference list spelled out. WHO. (2020). is wrong; the entry is alphabetized under World, and the reader finds it by the full name.
• Never abbreviate inside the reference list to match a short in-text form. The in-text citation and the first significant word of the reference must still agree: World and WHO both begin with W, which is why the pairing works.

Author as publisher: omit the publisher

Publication Manual §9.24 tells you to omit the publisher when it is the same as the author. This is the most common group-author situation: an association publishing its own manual, an NGO publishing its own annual report, a company publishing its own white paper. APA's own manual is the standard example.

Government agencies and parent agencies

For government work APA uses the most specific agency as the author. Parent departments that are not already part of that name move into the source element as the publisher, separated by commas, from the largest body to the one nearest the author. The report by a government agency examples on the APA Style site show the pattern.

Do not stack the hierarchy into the author position. U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau. (2024). is an MLA habit, not an APA one, and it moves the entry to the wrong place in the alphabet. If the agency is well known, an abbreviation works the same way as for any group: (U.S. Census Bureau [USCB], 2024) is allowed but rarely worth it. The full walkthrough for statutes, hearings, and reports is in how to cite a government report in APA.

Alphabetizing group authors

• Alphabetize by the first significant word of the full name: American Psychological Association under A, World Health Organization under W.
• Keep U.S. and United States exactly as the work prints them. APA's examples use U.S. Census Bureau, which files under U.
• Do not invert or rearrange a group name to bring a keyword forward. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stays as written.
• A group author with several works in the same year takes letters after the year, 2020a and 2020b, ordered by title. The letters appear in the in-text citations too: (WHO, 2020a).

MLA 9: organization as author, or as publisher only

MLA 9 treats an organization as an author whenever it is responsible for the work, but it adds a rule the other styles lack. If the organization is both the author and the publisher, the MLA Handbook (§5.21) says to skip the author element and begin with the title, then list the organization once, as the publisher. The MLA Style Center applies this to corporate reports, institutional websites, and most government pages.

When the author and the publisher are the same

The handbook's own example is a National Endowment for the Arts report published by the National Endowment for the Arts. Because the organization would appear twice, the author element is dropped. The entry is then alphabetized by its title, ignoring an initial A, An, or The, and the in-text citation uses the title rather than the organization. Compare this with the APA entry above, which kept the organization as author and dropped the publisher instead.

Government agencies in MLA

MLA 9 §5.22 lists a government author from the largest unit to the smallest, separated by commas: the government, then the department, then the agency. Because a separate publisher is usually named for printed government documents, the author element stays. When a page is published by the agency itself, the author-is-publisher rule takes over and the entry begins with the title. MLA 9 also lets you begin with the agency's own name when the larger government is not needed to identify it; whichever form you choose, use it for every entry from that government.

Several documents from the same government are listed together, with the government name replaced by three hyphens after the first entry when the whole author element repeats. See how to cite a government document in MLA for that layout and for congressional documents.

In-text citations for long names

MLA in-text citations are meant to be short. MLA Handbook §6.9 says that when a corporate author's name is long, work it into your sentence instead of the parentheses, and when it must go in parentheses, abbreviate the words MLA commonly abbreviates: Natl. for National, Assn. for Association, Dept. for Department, Inst. for Institute. Drop an initial article. The abbreviated form must still lead the reader to the works-cited entry, so the first word stays intact.

Chicago 18: corporate authors in notes, bibliography, and author-date

Chicago is the simplest of the three. If a work carries no personal author, the organization that issued it is listed as the author, and it is listed again as the publisher when it published the work; the Notes and Bibliography guide does not skip either name. Chicago 18 also dropped the requirement to give a place of publication, so University of Chicago Press, 2024 is complete where CMOS 17 wrote Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Abbreviations in Chicago

In notes-bibliography style, you can give the abbreviation in parentheses after the full name in the first note and use the abbreviation alone in later notes, exactly as you would in running text. In author-date style, CMOS lets a frequently cited organization be listed under its abbreviation, with the full name in parentheses, so that the short in-text citation and the reference-list entry begin with the same letters. The Author-Date guide uses that layout for group authors.

Pick one form per paper. Listing the entry under WHO while the text cites (World Health Organization 2020) breaks the alphabetical lookup that author-date depends on. Chicago's in-text citation has no comma between the name and the year, and the page number follows a comma: (WHO 2020, 12), not (WHO, 2020, p. 12). See Chicago in-text citations for the rest of the author-date punctuation.

Government agencies in Chicago

Chicago names the issuing agency as the author in the form readers know it, usually with the jurisdiction attached: U.S. Census Bureau, U.K. Office for National Statistics, Ontario Ministry of Health. The parent department can be listed as the publisher when the document names it, and the agency's own name is used when the agency published the document itself. Chicago does not build the MLA-style chain of government, department, and agency in the author position.

Quick comparison

Common mistakes

• Writing WHO. (2020). in an APA reference list. The list spells out every group; abbreviations live only in the text.
• Re-introducing the abbreviation in every section: (World Health Organization [WHO], 2020) appears once per paper.
• Using an APA-style bracketed abbreviation in MLA or Chicago. MLA abbreviates common words instead; Chicago uses parentheses.
• Repeating the organization as APA publisher: American Psychological Association. (2020). ... American Psychological Association. Omit the second one.
• Keeping the organization as MLA author when it is also the publisher. MLA wants the title first and the group once, as publisher.
• Citing a title-first MLA entry by the organization's name in the text. If the entry begins with Reading at Risk, the parenthetical is (Reading at Risk 3), not (National Endowment for the Arts 3).
• Stacking the government hierarchy into the APA author position. APA puts the specific agency first and the parents in the publisher slot.
• Dropping the Chicago publisher because it repeats the author. Chicago lists both names.
• Treating a funder or sponsor as the author. "Prepared for" names the client, not the writer.
• Moving the title first because no person is named. An organization is an author; only a work with no responsible body at all is authorless.

Related guides and official manuals

• How to Cite a Source with No Author
• How to Cite Multiple Authors
• How to Cite a Government Report in APA
• How to Cite a Government Document in MLA
• How to Cite Government Documents in Chicago
• How to cite a report in APA
• How to cite a government document in MLA
• How to cite a press release in Chicago
• APA Style: group authors
• APA Style: report by a government agency references
• MLA Style Center
• Chicago Notes-Bibliography citation guide
• Chicago Author-Date citation guide