Citing Sources in Business Administration

When information is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized, the source of that information must be documented. Otherwise, you are plagiarizing. To help you in avoiding plagiarism, review this tutorial to learn about academic integrity.

In most cases that standard citation style for citing sources used in academic business writing is the American Psychological Association (APA) style. Check with your instructor to see if they have a preference for a different citation style. 

APA (American Psychological Association) 7th edition (new Oct 2019!):

  • Print copies located at the Information Desk and in the Reference Collection under call # BF76.7.P83 2020
  • List of changes for students - an informal list of the most notable changes between APA 6th and 7th relevant to undergraduate students based on the parts of the manual that the librarians typically see students need to comply with for their papers
  • APA Style website with lots of examples for citing social media, sample Word papers for students and much more help than they previously provided
  • APA Guide at the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) now uses 7th
  • Recommended YouTube videos (12 to 24 minutes each)

APA (American Psychological Association) 6th edition:

APA Examples

Company Documents

Annual Reports

Rules

  1. The company name is considered the author.
  2. The title of the report should be italicized.
  3. When accessed online include a retrieval statement and URL.

Examples

Annual Report on a company's website

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. (2019). Annual Report. Retrieved from:
      https://www.cibc.com/en/about-cibc/investor-relations/annual-reports-an…

In-Text Citation → (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce [CIBC], 2019) 
*Note: By placing [CIBC] in brackets as a shortened version, you can use shortened company name and date in the remainder
of your paper - eg. (CIBC, 2019)

Annual Report retrieved from a database or collection

Shopify Inc. (2020, May 6). Management's Discussion and Analysis. Retrieved from SEDAR: 
      http://www.sedar.com

In-Text Citation → (Shopify Inc., 2020)

Press Release

Rules

Press Releases are announcements, and also referred to as media releases or news releases.
A press release has several parts:

  1. Title includes company author and captures content in title  
  2. Date and location of release
  3. Content section which always includes a section about the company
  4. Contact information for further information

Companies often have a company news centre on their corporate website.

Example:

Shopify Inc. (2020, April 1). Shopify Provides Business Update Relating to COVID-19
      [Press release]. Retrieved from
      https://news.shopify.com/shopify-provides-business-update-relating-to-c…

In-text citation → (Shopify Inc., 2020)
 


Date revised: 17-May-2020

Not specified