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Citation Guide

This guide gives overviews and sample citations for MLA and APA citation styles.

APA Style Guide -- Business Sources

Tips for citing business sources:

  • Many business sources contain tables, charts, data sets, and other non-standard sources. If you are unsure of how to cite a source, ask a librarian for help.
  • If no author's name is listed, use a corporate author. A corporate author is the company, association, or group responsible for the content.
  • If no publication date is listed, use the abbreviation n.d. for "no date."

 

Because the APA style manual does not provide examples for every single type of resource, the examples below have been adapted for resources commonly used by business students.

 

Company Profile in Business Insights: Essentials

Example

Gale Cengage Learning. (n.d.) Safeway, Inc. [Company profile]. Retrieved from Business & Company Resource Center database.

Gale Cengage Learning is the corporate author of the company profiles in Business Insights: Essentials. Company profiles obtained from other sources will have different authors.

S.W.O.T. Analysis in Business Insights: Essentials

Example

GlobalData. (n.d.) Target Corp. [S.W.O.T. analysis]. Retrieved from Business Insights: Essentials.

GlobalData is the corporate author of S.W.O.T. analyses accessed through Business Insights: Essentials.

 

Value Line Investment Survey

Example

Value Line Publishing. (2011, January 7). Apple, Inc. Value Line Investment Survey. Retrieved from Value Line Research Center.

 

BusinessDecision

Business Decision allows the user to create custom data sets. If you are citing data created by you, list yourself as the author. If you are citing data created by someone else, list that person as the author.

Example

Bass, K. (2010). [West Knox County demographic data]. Unpublished raw data. Retrieved from BusinessDecision database.

 

If you do not know the name of the creator, begin with the title of the data set.

Example

[West Knox County demographic data]. (2010). Unpublished raw data. Retrieved from BusinessDecision database.

 

Chart, Graph, Table, etc.

Example (Table)

Morningstar, Inc. (2011, February 11). Ruby Tuesday, Inc.: Income statement (Annual). [Table]. Retrieved from LexisNexis

     Academic database.

 

In LexisNexis Academic, the corporate author of a table and its publication date can usually be found directly beneath the table.