The method for citing the Constitution will vary based on whether you use the APA or MLA formats, but both are easy to use and are described fully below.
ConstitutionUS.com provides a full-text copy of the United States Constitution. This site includes the Bill of Rights , all twenty-seven Amendments , and indexes to help you find specific details throughout the text. You can cite the Constitution in any document by using a few standards. But the rules for citing the Constitution will vary surrounding whether you use the APA or MLA format . Before making a citation, be sure to know which of the two formats you should be using.
You must cite the Constitution if you’re using it to support a point you wish to make when writing. However, you do not have to reference the Constitution if you make a passing reference to the document without mentioning any precise points in your work. You can tell you need to reference the Constitution by looking at how specific you are when referencing the overall content.
The first way to cite the Constitution is through the APA format. The American Psychological Association format is for scholarly journal reports and academic documents.
The following items will be included in your APA citation. You’ll need to use the proper abbreviations and standards for writing:
For example, you might cite a detail in the Constitution about when the President and Vice President’s terms end. An example would come in this form:
“The Twentieth Amendment of the United States Constitution states that the President and Vice President’s terms will expire on January 20 at noon, while Congressional members’ terms end on January 3 at noon (U.S. Const. Amend. XX, §1).”
The citation lists the specific amendment you are citing and the section in that amendment, showing that you understand the subject matter.
The APA format does not require you to list the ConstitutionUS.com website or any other URL in your reference.
You will need to add the proper year when something in the Constitution was repealed or amended if you refer to something that was altered through such means.
You will cite this by including at the end of your reference in parentheses the year when that part was repealed or amended.
An example of the in-text use of the citation entails how Article 1 , Section 3, Clause 1 of the Constitution was amended by Section 1 of the Seventeenth Amendment. You could write in this case:
“The Senate was established with the Legislature intending to choose the two senators for each state for six-year terms (U.S. Const. Art. I, §3, cl. 1, amended 1919).”
You are referencing the part of the Constitution that was utilized at the start while also mentioning that the rule was amended in 1919, as the Seventeenth Amendment gave people the right to elect their senators through popular elections.
The next part of the APA citation entails how the Constitution will appear in your reference list. You will use the same listing you utilized in your in-text citation in your reference list.
For the Twentieth Amendment example listed above, you will write:
For repealed or amended content, you would need to add parentheses around the time the change took place. For the earlier example, you would list:
Join the thousands of fellow patriots who rely on our 5-minute newsletter to stay informed on the key events and trends that shaped our nation's past and continue to shape its present.
You can also use a similar format when citing the Bill of Rights.
The Modern Language Association or MLA is another format you might utilize to cite some documents.
The MLA standard for citing the Constitution differs from what you would use with the APA format, most notably in that you’ll need to list the URL or other source that features the copy of the Constitution you are using.
The in-text MLA citation will entail listing the name of the webpage where you viewed the Constitution. You will list these points:
For example, when referring to a copy of the Constitution on Constitutionus.com, you can use a citation like this:
“ Article III of the United States Constitution states that impeachment cases do not have to be subject to a trial by jury like with all other crimes (“US Constitution,” Art. III, Sec. 3).”
The most noticeable difference here is that you’ll need to provide details on where you found the Constitution in your MLA citation. You will use this standard:
“Page Title.” Name of Website , Day, month, year of publication (without commas), URL. Accessed (day, month, and year of access without commas in between).
You can use this example when referring to the earlier example of the Constitution from the last segment:
“US Constitution.” ConstitutionUS.com, 2020, https://constitutionus.com/. Accessed 10 March 2021.
You could always use a book version of the Constitution if you don’t have access to ConstitutionUS.com. For this case, you would use the following format in your works cited space:
Book title. Edited by (First and last names), edition, publisher, year.
You would also refer to the Constitution within the text by ( U.S. Constitution , (amendment or article), (section)).
You can use a similar citation method if you refer specifically to the Bill of Rights.
Be sure you use the right standards when referencing the United States Constitution in your work, whether APA or MLA. Failing to use the correct citation standard could result in penalties in your papers or even allegations of plagiarism.
| Fact | Description |
|---|---|
| Citation format | The standard citation format for the US Constitution includes the Article, Section, and Clause numbers. |
| Short form citation | For subsequent references, the short form citation can be used with only the Article and Section numbers. |
| Punctuation | Commas are used to separate the Article, Section, and Clause numbers in a citation. |
| Pinpoint citation | Pinpoint citations are used to refer to a specific sentence or passage within the Constitution. |
| Block quotes | Long quotations (more than four lines) should be indented as a block quote and not enclosed in quotation marks. |
| Historical context | The historical context of the Constitution and its amendments may be relevant to interpretation and citation. |
| Proper attribution | Proper attribution is important when quoting or referencing the Constitution in legal or academic contexts. |
| Supreme Court interpretations and citations | The US Supreme Court’s interpretations and citations of the Constitution carry significant weight in legal cases. |
| Amendments and related documents’ citations | Citations for the amendments to the Constitution, as well as related documents like the Bill of Rights, follow a similar format. |
| Electronic sources citation | Electronic sources, such as online versions of the Constitution, require specific citation formats. |
Watch the following video to learn more about constitution citation:
