How to Cite the Federal Register?

US federal laws are codified in the Code of Federal Regulations. Uncodified regulations, on the other hand, are revised often in the Federal Register.

You might need to utilize a rule that is listed in the Federal Register as a source if your research paper is on federal regulatory activities. The Code of Federal Regulations contains a codification of US federal statutes.

On the other hand, uncodified regulations are often updated in the Federal Register. The material in your citation will be the same, but the structure will change. For federal register citations, MLA follows the Bluebook citation format. The citation format employed in the legal profession is called Bluebook.

First and foremost, start your work cited entry

The reference list or bibliography, which is also known as the list of works cited in MLA format, is located at the conclusion of your essay. It provides comprehensive information about each source you cited in an MLA in-text citation.

The Works Cited section of an MLA-formatted document should be left-aligned, double-spaced, and have 1-inch margins.

You may make and maintain your Works Cited list with the free Scribbr Citation Generator. To begin, select your source type and input the URL, DOI, or title.

To indicate the federal government in rules published in the Federal Register, begin the phrase with “United States.” After “United States,” add the name of the particular executive department or agency that produced the regulation, followed by a comma after the agency’s name put a semicolon.

Specify the regulation’s title.

The entry in the Federal Register will begin with the title of the regulation. Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives, and write everything in the title case.

The title should conclude with a period.

For instance, see “Premarket Tobacco Product Applications and Recordkeeping Requirements” from the Food and Drug Administration of the United States.

Indicate the volume and page where the rule is located

The broad and permanent rules that the executive departments and agencies of the federal government published in the Federal Register are codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The 50 titles indicate the major categories covered by federal regulation. Each CFR volume is revised once a year and published on a quarterly schedule.

Updated as of January 1st is Titles 1 through 16.

Updated as of April 1 are titles 17 through 27.

Updated as of July 1st are Titles 28 through 41.

As of October 1st, titles 42 through 50 have been revised.

Each title is broken up into chapters, most of which include the name of the publishing company. Each chapter is divided further into sections that cover particular regulatory fields. Subparts may be created from larger parts. The CFR is divided into sections, and the majority of citations are given at the section level. The U.S. Government Manual’s Appendix C contains a list of agencies and their CFR appearances.

The CFR’s annual editions, which are available as PDF files on GPO’s Govinfo website, are the ones that have been approved by the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register (1 CFR part 8). The Office of the Federal Register (OFR) of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Government Publishing Office (GPO) collaboratively create the CFR volumes to make official government information available to the general public.

Govinfo receives new CFR volumes at the same time the print editions are published. The earlier editions continue to exist on Govinfo as a historical set even when revised CFR volumes are added. Some CFR documents on Govinfo go back to 1996; all titles from 1997 to the present day are accessible. Both ASCII text and PDF files are accessible for documents.

Put parentheses around the publishing date.

After the last page number, type a space, then open the parenthesis.

Use the month’s three-letter abbreviation to enter the date in the format month-day-year.

Put a period after the final pair of parenthesis.

Premarket Tobacco Product Applications and Recordkeeping Requirements, United States Food and Drug Administration, 84 Fed. Reg. 50,566 (Sep. 25, 2019).

In your in-text reference, use the first component of your Works Cited item.

When you refer to the rule in your text, be sure to provide a parenthetical reference that points readers to the entry in your works cited.

As your parenthetical citation, use the first few entries from your Works Cited list. Usually, “United States” and the title of the executive branch department or organization that issued the regulation are used.

Example: Manufacturers are required by the law to keep documents proving that tobacco goods, including vaping devices, are legitimately marketed (United States, Food and Drug Administration).

The US Food and Drug Administration created a regulation to regulate the marketing of vaping devices, for instance, following deaths caused by the use of such devices. There is no requirement for a parenthetical citation because you mentioned the executive agency in the sentence.

APA

1. Citation in the text

The material is cited in the sentence where it is utilized using the APA style. An in-text provides sufficient details to specifically identify the source in your list of references.

2. Instructions for Citing One or Two Authors in APA Format

The last name(s) of the author(s) and the year of publication must be included in in-text citations according to the APA style. The page number(s), denoted by the letter “p,” should be included whenever you directly quote from a source. For articles with one or two authors, each text citation includes all names.

3. The APA Style: How to Cite Three or More Authors (APA 7th Edition)

The seventh edition of the APA Publication Manual, which replaced the sixth edition released in 2009, was unveiled by the organization in October 2019. For works with three or more authors, the in-intext citation is now condensed beginning with the first citation. You just include “et al.” and the name of the first author.

4. The APA Style: How to Cite Multiple Sources in One Citation

Semicolons should be used to separate multiple sources in a sentence when citing them.

5. Your reference list entry should begin with the regulation’s title.

Give the whole title of the regulation, which may be found in the header. Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives, and write anything said in the title.

The title should conclude with a period. Mammography Quality Standards Act, for instance.

6. The volume number first, then a space, and finally “Fed. Reg.”

The page number where the rule begins should be typed after the abbreviation. Commas should not be placed between page number digits.

An example is the Mammography Quality Standards Act, 84 Fed.

7. Put parentheses around the publishing date.

Without shortening the month name, type the date in the format month-day-year. If the rule still needs to be put in place, include a status with the date. Verify the “activity” line in the regulation’s header.

Include this information before the deadline if the regulation isn’t yet in force. If the date is the final component in your citation, add a period after the closing parenthesis.

An such is the Mammography Quality Standards Act, 84 Fed (proposed March 28, 2019)

8. Describe the location of the rule’s future location, if it is known.

Look for a CFR line in the regulation’s header. If there is room, put a space after the date’s closing parenthesis before starting a new set of parentheses.

The volume and part number where the rule will be codified should be typed after the phrase “to be codified at.” For the portion, use the abbreviation “pt.” After the final parenthesis, put a period.

84 Fed. Reg. 11669 (proposed March 28, 2019), for instance, the Mammography Quality Standards Act (to be codified at 21 C.F.R. pt. 900).

9. To cite in-text, provide the title of the rule and the year.

Each in-text citation has a counterpart in the reference list since they are supposed to help readers locate a specific source, with the exception of two categories of materials: classical works and personal correspondence, which are solely cited in-text.

The format for APA in-text citations, which uses the author-date system, is rather straightforward. With very few exceptions, this format is appropriate for the majority of references. The instructions and examples for writing in-text citations are provided below. The author’s last name and the year of publication are typically written inside the parentheses of an APA in-text citation, separated by a comma. Only the year is placed in parentheses if the author’s name appears in the text.

Conclusion

Use the above-given approaches if you want to cite something in your research paper if it is about federal regulatory activities.