AGLC4 Rule 7.1.1: Reports and Similar Documents: General Rule

Cite a report by its author, its title and a bracket giving the kind of document, its number and its date, then any pinpoint. Leave the author out altogether when the document does not prominently name one. If the kind of document is already an inseparable part of the title, keep it there and use the generic word Report in the bracket rather than repeating it. Give a number only when the document shows one, and as much of the date as the document supplies.

AGLC4 page 106

Format

Quoted from the Guide, page 106
Author, Title (Document Type/Series No Document Number, Full Date) Pinpoint.

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

Formatting

  • The author is roman and is followed by a comma; it follows rule 4.1 and is omitted entirely, with nothing put in its place, when the report does not prominently identify one.
  • The title is italic, with no quotation marks, and any subtitle after a colon is italic as well.
  • A single space separates the title from an opening round bracket.
  • Inside the round bracket the document type or series comes first, roman, capitalised as the source capitalises it (for example Final Report, Report, Issues Note).
  • Where the document is numbered, the document type is followed by a space, the word No with no full stop, a space and the number.
  • A comma and space separate the number (or the document type when unnumbered) from the date.
  • The date is written day, month in full, year with no internal commas; a month and year alone, or a year alone, is used when that is all the document shows.
  • A document type that is built into the title (for example an annual report titled as such) is not repeated in the bracket; the bracket uses the plain word Report instead.
  • The pinpoint follows the closing bracket after a single space, and page ranges use a closing number shortened as in rule 1.1.6 and joined by an unspaced dash.
  • A report in several volumes always carries the volume in the pinpoint as vol followed by the number, then a comma and the page, even where the pagination runs across volumes.
  • A URL may be added after the pinpoint in angle brackets under rules 4.4 and 4.5.
  • The citation ends with a full stop.

Examples

Quoted from the Guide, page 106
  1. 1
    Review of the Law of Negligence (Final Report, September 2002) 37–57. [Not: Panel of Eminent Persons, Review of the Law of Negligence …]
  2. 2
    Community Law Australia, Unaffordable and Out of Reach: The Problem of Access to the Australian Legal System (Report, July 2012).
  3. 3
    Qantas Airways, Qantas Annual Report 2017: Positioning for Sustainability and Growth (Report, 2017) 12. [Not: … Qantas Annual Report 2017: Positioning for Sustainability and Growth (Annual Report, 2017) 12.]
  4. 4
    Investment and Enterprise Division, UNCTAD, Improving Investment Dispute Settlement: UNCTAD Policy Tools (IIA Issues Note No 4, 23 November 2017).

Not

Quoted from the Guide, page 106
  • [Not: Panel of Eminent Persons, Review of the Law of Negligence …]
    the report does not prominently name an author, so no author is given
  • [Not: … Qantas Annual Report 2017: Positioning for Sustainability and Growth (Annual Report, 2017) 12.]
    the document type already forms part of the title, so the bracket says Report rather than repeating Annual Report

See also

Check your footnotes against these rules

Paste your paper into the free AGLC4 checker and each footnote is graded against the Guide, with the rule it breaks. To write a citation from scratch, use the AGLC4 citation generator.

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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.