MHRA · Government Document
How to cite a government document in MHRA
A government-document citation covers official publications by ministries, agencies, and statistical offices. The classic mistakes are crediting a person where the agency is the corporate author, and citing a summary page when a numbered report with a stable identifier exists underneath it.
Worked example · MHRA
National Survey of Doctoral Completion Rates, Government report ED-2024-117 (Example Ministry of Education, 2024) <https://www.example.org/gov/ed-2024-117>
Rendered with the official MHRA style file from a placeholder source (reserved example DOI and domain), so the format is exactly what the style produces. In text: Numbered footnotes with full details at first mention, plus a bibliography.
What to collect before you cite a government document
- The issuing agency as corporate author
- The document title
- Year of publication
- The report or series number, if any
- The URL of the official copy
Have a DOI? Generate the reference instantly
Journal articles, many books and reports carry a DOI. Paste it and get the MHRA entry from the same engine that produced the example above.
Citing a whole thesis, not one source?
CiteDash keeps your bibliography in MHRA automatically, verifies every citation against a real paper, and compiles to DOCX, PDF or LaTeX.
Citing a government document in MHRA: FAQ
Who is the author of an agency report?
The agency itself, as a corporate author, unless named individuals appear on the title page. Write the agency's full name, not its acronym, at first mention.
The document lives behind a portal. What URL do I cite?
The most stable official URL you can find, ideally a document page rather than a search result. If the portal issues a persistent identifier, prefer it.
Is a government statistic a dataset or a document?
If you used a downloadable data file, cite it as a dataset; if you used figures printed in a report, cite the report. Cite what you actually read.
What does the in-text citation look like in MHRA?
Numbered footnotes with full details at first mention, plus a bibliography.
Is the example on this page hand-written?
No. It is rendered by the same citation engine and official CSL style file CiteDash uses for full thesis bibliographies, from a clearly-marked placeholder source, and a test re-renders it on every release so the page can never drift from the engine.