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This guide is based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th ed., and gives citation examples for various sources commonly used in business. All page and section numbers refer to this manual.

General Guidelines

The Publication Manual of the APA (6th edition) includes scant information about how to cite document types common to business; in some cases there are different ways to interpret how to cite a specific item. The manual does state that when it offers no examples for the type of document to be cited, then you should find the closest example and use it to build your citation, which is what we have done with this guide (see p. 193, para.2 for more information on this rule).

In text citations

Capitalize all major words in titles within the body of the paper (Rule 4.15, p.101).

Example

  • According to the Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence Survey of 2010 [...]
  • In the book Business Ethics as Rational Choice, Hooker claims that [...]

Note: In reference lists, capitalize only the first word of the title and of the subtitle. Also capitalize proper nouns.

When quoting from print sources or online articles, give the author, year, and page number in parentheses (Rule 6.03, pp.170 - 171).

Example

  • According to Marketline (2010),..."direct_quotation" (p. 34).
  • "Direct_quotation"... (Acer, Inc., 2010, p. 17).

When paraphrasing from a source, or when referring to an idea contained in another work, you are encouraged to provide a page number (Rule 6.04 p. 171). If there is no date of publication, use the abbreviation (n.d.). List two or more works by different authors who are cited within the same parentheses in alphabetical order by the first author's surname or group/organization name (Rule 6.16 p. 177).

Example
(Bureau van Dijk, 2010; Datamonitor, 2009; Simpson, 2010)

It is acceptable to abbreviate long names in the second and following in-text references. Just be sure to give the reader enough information to be able to match the in text reference to the citation in the reference list.

Many electronic sources do not provide page numbers. If there is no page number, use paragraph numbers preceded by the abbreviation 'para.' (Rule 6.05 pp. 171-172). If a source contains neither page nor paragraph numbers, cite the heading (shorten the heading if it is long) (Rule 6.05 pp. 171-172).

Reference List

The list of sources at the end of the paper (bibliography) is called the reference list in APA. The reference list must include all cited references in the text of your paper.

Authors can be individuals or groups/organizations (e.g., Google, inc. or Euromonitor International).

Order the references alphabetically by the name of the group, or the last name of an individual author (Rule 6.25, p. 181). For an individual author's first name use only initials: 'Smith, J.', not 'Smith, Jennifer'.

If you have multiple publications by one author from different years order them earliest to latest: Smith, J. (1999) ... Smith, J. (2003).

If there is no author available, use the title as the author and include it in alphabetical order.

If there is no date of publication, use the abbreviation (n.d.).

Second and subsequent lines of each entry are indented 5-7 spaces. Double-space between all lines of your work, including references.

When citing books, reports, and most other items except periodicals (magazine and journal articles), capitalize only the first word of the title and of the subtitle (i.e. the first word after a colon or a dash) and proper nouns (Rule 6.29, p. 185).

See also: Notes on common issues encountered when citing business resources.