BUS 203 Business Writing

The Purdue Owl APA formatting and Style Guide's most often used spaces on the guide are:

In-Text Citations: The Basics (information on how a citation should generally be formatted inside of your paper, paraphrased, and direct quotes)
In-Text Citations: Author/Authors (information on rules for listing of author(s). For example multiple authors, corporate authors, etc.)

Reference List: Basic Rules (section covers issues such as alphabetizing entries, hanging indent, etc.)
Reference List: Electronic Sources (section covers formatting for online journals, news articles, electronic books, etc.)

Consult other sections of the guide as needed; visit The Purdue Owl, APA Formatting and Style Guide (7th edition)

IBISWorld Industry Report

Reference Entry
Cook, D. (2020, September). Video game software publishing in the US (51121E). [US industry report]. Retrieved from IBISWorld.com 

In-text citation (w/out a page number)

(Cook, 2020)

NOTE: If you are directly quoting from this source include the page number; easily obtained from the PDF of the report. 

In-text citation (with a page number)

(Cook, 2020, p. 36)

If you are citing a Company Benchmarking Report for example:

US COMPANY BENCHMARKING REPORT 10097
Nortonlifelock Inc. 

Use this model and insert your report information with date retrieved.

Company Benchmarking Report

IBISWorld (n.d). US Company Benchmarking Report 10097 Nortonlifelock Inc. Retrieved March 28, 2023 from IBISWorld.com

In-text 

IBISWorld (n.d.)

Note if you cite more than one company benchmark report you will need to use a, b, c to differentiate between the sources.

IBISWorld (n.d. -a)

Mergent Online

Reference Entry for a Company
Mergent, Inc. (n.d.). Tesla, Inc.: Company details. Retrieved October 16, 2020 from Mergentonline.com

Note: (n.d.) represents no date. Reports pulled from this source do not have a known date. Where you must include a date is in the retrieval statement. This is because this source is subject to change.

In-text citation

(Mergent, Inc., n.d.)

Reference Entry for a section of a company report
Mergent, Inc. (n.d.). Tesla, Inc. [Ownership]. Retrieved October 21, 2020 from Mergentonline.com

Note: (n.d.) represents no date. Reports pulled from this source do not have a known date. Where you must include a date is in the retrieval statement. This is because this source is subject to change.

In-text citation

(Mergent, Inc., n.d.)

More than one entry for the same company; requires the use of letters. a, b, c.

First alphabetize your reference entries, then assign a, b, c, etc. next to where the date is listed. If you have a year of publication place the letter directly behind the year (2020a). However if there is an entry with no date (n.d.), use a hyphen before the use of the letter (n.d. -a). 

Mergent, Inc. (n.d.-a). Tesla, Inc.: Company details. Retrieved October 16, 2020 from Mergentonline.com

Mergent, Inc. (n.d.-b). Tesla, Inc. [Ownership]. Retrieved October 21, 2020 from Mergentonline.com

In-text citation - use the entry that points your reader to the correct report/source.

(Mergent, Inc., n.d -a.). 

(For more on this see the APA style blog)

Example of an entry for a corporate annual report from a company's website.

Netflix, Inc. (2019, Dec. 31). Form 10-K. Retrieved from www.netflixinvestor.com
 

Example of an entry for a corporate annual report from sec.gov (EDGAR)

Netflix, Inc. (2019, Dec. 31). Form 10-K. Retrieved from https://www.sec.gov/