How to Cite an Organization or Group Author in APA 7th Edition
Government agencies, universities, nonprofits, and associations can all function as authors. The key is deciding when to abbreviate and when the full name should stay visible.
Quick Rules
The shortest version of this page.
What counts as a group author in APA?
Associations, agencies, universities, nonprofits, and research institutes can all count as authors when the organization is clearly responsible for the content.
This is different from a source with no author at all.
If nobody is credited, switch to the no-author citation rule.
First citation: full name + abbreviation
Parenthetical format
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2024)
Spell out the full name first, then introduce the abbreviation.
Narrative format
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2024)
The organization name becomes part of the sentence.
Subsequent citations and when not to abbreviate
After the first citation, you can use only the abbreviation if it is familiar and still clear in context.
Do not abbreviate when the acronym is obscure, the name appears only once, or the shortened form makes the sentence harder to read.
Group author in the reference list
Reference entries begin with the full organization name. If the organization and website name are identical, omit the repeated website name.
Reference entry example
World Health Organization. (2024). Health workforce strategy. https://www.who.int/
The reference list keeps the organization in full even if later citations use WHO.
Real-world examples
| Case | Parenthetical | Narrative | Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| CDC | (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2024) | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2024) | A strong candidate for abbreviation because the acronym is well known. |
| WHO | (World Health Organization [WHO], 2024) | World Health Organization (WHO, 2024) | Introduce WHO once, then reuse it when the context stays clear. |
| University center | (Center for Teaching Excellence, 2024) | Center for Teaching Excellence (2024) | No abbreviation is needed if it does not help the reader. |
To compare these with sentence-level citation choices, revisit parenthetical vs narrative format.
FAQ
Answers to the common APA edge cases
Related Guides
Follow the connected APA guides below to move from rule lookup to final citation.
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Parenthetical vs Narrative Citations
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