AGLC4 Rule 4.1.4: Publications Authored by a Body

When a body such as a government department or organisation produced a work, the body is named as author. A subdivision, or an individual prominently writing for the body, is named before the body. No author is given if none is prominently credited, the Commonwealth of Australia is written as Commonwealth, company designators are removed, and only the English name of a multilingual body is used.

AGLC4 page 85

Format

Quoted from the Guide, page 85
Individual/Subdivision, Body

A boxed element is filled in with the source's details; everything outside a box is written exactly as shown.

Formatting

  • The body's name is roman and takes the place of an individual author.
  • Where a government department's name does not reveal its jurisdiction, the jurisdiction abbreviation may follow in round brackets.
  • A subdivision or individual comes first, then a comma and a space, then the body.
  • Where there are several layers of subdivision, only the most specific is given, unless more are needed to avoid ambiguity, in which case only as many as clarity requires are given.
  • No author is given when none is prominently credited on the title page or the publication details page.
  • Works written on behalf of the Commonwealth of Australia give the author as Commonwealth.
  • Corporate designators such as Pty, Ltd, Co and Inc are dropped, as is an initial the.
  • Where the body's name is bilingual or multilingual, only the English version is used.

Examples

Quoted from the Guide, page 85
  1. 9
    Family Court of Australia, ‘Response of the Family Court of Australia to the Attorney-General’s Department Paper on Primary Dispute Resolution Services in Family Law’ (1997).
  2. 10
    Information Management Committee, Department of Justice and Attorney-General (Qld), ‘Terms of Reference’ (4 March 2015).
  3. 11
    Review of the Law of Negligence (Final Report, September 2002). [Not: Panel of Eminent Persons, Review of the Law of Negligence … nor … Commonwealth of Australia …]
  4. 12
    Queensland Government, ClimateSmart 2050: Queensland Climate Change Strategy 2007 (2007).
  5. 13
    Department for Women (NSW), Heroines of Fortitude: The Experiences of Women in Court as Victims of Sexual Assault (1996).
  6. 14
    Russell Cocks, Law Institute of Victoria, Ethics Handbook: Questions and Answers (2004) 133.

Not

Quoted from the Guide, page 85
  • [Not: Panel of Eminent Persons, Review of the Law of Negligence … nor … Commonwealth of Australia …]
    no author is prominently credited, so none is given, and the Commonwealth is never written as Commonwealth of Australia

See also

Check your footnotes against these rules

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Formats, examples, passages, tables and the forms marked Not are quoted from the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (4th ed, Melbourne University Law Review Association, 2018), with the page of the Guide they appear on. Titles, summaries and explanations are our own.