Citing Business Information

In the academic setting, we use formalized styles of attribution. Formatting your citations in a format like APA is a standardized means of giving credit to the person or company who created the content you're using. The content creator may be an author, analyst, or your professor, for example. Outside of academia, you'll probably cite your work in different ways. Click here for information about citing your sources verbally.

There are many different citation styles to choose from. Depending on your discipline, target audience, or place of work (Buzzfeed style guide), you will be asked to use different styles in different situations. In business, the preferred style is APA style. 

In general, APA discourages database names in the citation for articles, books, and other sources that can be easily found in a library catalog, on a publisher's website, etc. However, because business databases contain original proprietary information that generally cannot be found outside of a specific database, it's important to list the database name in the source citation in Italic type.

Often, to help identify data, reports and other works (e.g. works other than articles, books, reports, etc.) should include a description of the work in square brackets after the title and before the period. Define any special formats such as [Map] or [Table] or [Data set] or [Country report]. Capitalize the first letter of the description, but do not italicize.

After the title and database information, it's important to provide the DOI or URL of the work. Since most of the URL's are session-specific (meaning they will not resolve for users), provide the URL of the database home page or the login page instead.

When there is no personal author for a source, use the corporate author – the organization, company, or publisher.

It's important to try to cite the original source or author of each work. In some cases, such as with Insider Intelligence or Statista, the company (e.g. Insider Intelligence) has remixed the work or data for their own purposes. Often, the company/publisher has made this clear; however, they are rarely perfect. In general, the best practice in business and academia is to cite the original source of the data or information (see: Data-Planet).

Databases such as Mergent Online do not provide report numbers, dates, or author names. Because the reports are updated over time, it's important to include a retrieval date. 

When in doubt, contact Ask-a-Librarian.