Many business sources contain tables, charts, data sets, and other non-standard types of information. General guidelines:
Because the APA style manual does not provide examples for every single type of resource, these examples have been adapted for common business resources. If you are unsure of how to cite a source, ask your business librarian.
Jump to more specific examples by using the table below:
Marketline is the author of most of the SWOTs in our subscription. For SWOTs that may come from other databases, most often you are looking for a corporate/organization author.
Some Global Road Warrior report pages have a Writer listed at the bottom of the page. If none listed, use Global Road Warrior as an Author, and no need to repeat it in the Source position.
However, some subsections may be reprints from other sources -- e.g., the Human Rights Reports section is reprinted from the U.S. Department of State report:
The information on a Nexis Uni company profile (dossier) comes from a variety of sources. Many sections, such as the SEC filings, Company Reports, Company Activities, News, & Legal, are all reprinted from other news or governmental sources, and should be cited showing the original author. In general, look at the bottom of pages for Copyright info or “from______” -- see some examples at right. Think logically about who would have created this info (e.g., SEC filings come from the company; company reports are generally from third parties; news is reprinted from typical newspapers or magazines) to decide who should be the author in your citation. Here are some possible examples:
All SEC filings are publicly available on the web. So, no matter where you accessed it from, there's really no need to include database information, though you can include a freely-accessible web link to make it easier for your reader to retrieve it if you wish.
Include retrieval dates since profiles are regularly updated. Look in the Business Demographics section of a company profile for the Last Updated On: date.
If the company's name is sufficiently unique to identify that company (i.e., there is only one of that company in that city/state), then that is all you need for the Title. If there are multiple companies with that name and that location, then include the exact address in parentheses as a unique identifier, as below.
For creating a list of companies or people with certain criteria, the Excel or PDF format list has no real title. So create a description, in [square brackets], of what criteria you applied to get your list, so that someone else could retrieve the same (or similar) data. Include retrieval date because the list would probably be different at a later date.
The Title is the dataset used, which also provides you with a Date. However, that doesn't tell your reader what exact data you were using. So create a description after the title, in [square brackets], of what criteria you applied to get your list, so that someone else could retrieve the same (or similar) data.
For the profiles of any type of Publication, Radio, TV/Cable, Out-of-home, or Hispanic media with a profile in SRDS, include retrieval date as these are updated regularly.
These PDFs should all have dates.
Look in the “Source” box to the right of Statista's charts for most of the citation information. Sometimes there are multiple sources for one chart; if so, treat it just like you would a normal multiple-author situation on an article. For date, check the Release Info or Source Link boxes (see right); but if not listed, use (n.d.) for No Date.
Value Line content (e.g. stock prices, some ratings) is updated almost daily, but if they have a PDF of your company, then it is archived so no need to include the retrieval date here. Look for the PDFs if available for your company in the top right or bottom left corner of the HTML webpage.
If there is no PDF, then it is unarchived, so use (n.d.) and include a retrieval date.
The Title is the dataset used, which also provides you with a Date. However, that doesn't tell your reader what exact data you were using. So create a description after the title, in [square brackets], of what criteria you applied to get your list, so that someone else could retrieve the same (or similar) data.