Some of the information in this post may be out of date. Please speak to a librarian for more up to date information or check our Citation Help page.
At this time of year students approach the reference desk asking questions on how to cite business databases and/or articles using the American Psychological Association (APA) style. If you’re new to the APA style, you might want to take a look at the APA’s video tutorial on The Basics of APA Style. The library also carries the latest (6th edition) Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association in the ready reference collection located next to the reference desk. Lastly, the Purdue Online Writing Lab contains an overview of the style, sample bibliographic and in-text citations, and a sample APA paper.
A current APA style change stipulates that when citing articles taken from library databases, students and researchers place the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) within the citation when a DOI is available for an article. The DOI is an alphanumeric string assigned to an article, regardless of where the article resides. The DOI is usually located on the first page of an electronic journal article, near the copyright notice, and on the database landing page for the article. All of the EBSCO databases include a DOI in their article abstracts; however, Proquest uses a unique Document ID number. If a DOI is not easily located on an article retrieved from a library database, develop your citation using the standard format for a print article; you no longer need to document which database you used to retrieve the article.
If you are citing a business database, such as a Value Line or Mergent Online, try one of the following sites for guidance on how to develop your citation:
Citing Business Databases in APA Style from Steve Cramer, Business Librarian at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro:
http://library.uncg.edu/depts/ref/biz/apa_biz.asp#bse
(updated 3/10/2010)
Citing Business Sources in APA Style
from McGill University at http://www.mcgill.ca/library/library-assistance/how-to-cite/business/
(copyright, 2010)
For more sources on how to cite using different citation styles, see the library’s Citation Help page. Remember, the Writing Center at ACE is ready to assist you with your questions on APA, MLA, or Chicago citation styles.
The Douglas and Judith Krupp Library 