How do I reference financial reports and data… in the Cranfield Author-date style?

We all know how to cite and reference from books, journals, the internet and even blog posts, but what about financials? Just as you would do with information from other sources, data retrieved from a specialist finance resource should be acknowledged in the same way.

The format for referencing financials in Cranfield Author-date style – whether a financial report or a set of financial data – is essentially the same.

Here’s what you need to include in your reference:

• Publishing organisation or author
• (Year of publication/last update)
• ‘Title or section of report’ OR ‘Title of data extract’,
• Name of the database the data was retrieved from (in italics).
• Available at: URL/subscription service.
• (Accessed: date).

And how your references should look:

Bloomberg (2017) ‘Tesco PLC daily share price 2011-2016’, Bloomberg Professional. Available at: Bloomberg subscription service. (Accessed: 2 March 2017).

Thomson Reuters (2017) ‘Microsoft Corporation annual balance sheet 2012-2016’, Thomson One. Available at: https://www.thomsonone.com (Accessed: 28 February 2017).

What about your in-text citations?

Where you make reference to these in your text, follow the normal ‘name and date’ conventions and simply follow any mention with (Bloomberg, 2017) or (Thomson Reuters, 2017), or a variation thereon.

What if you want to copy a table from one of the resources into your assignment?

If you’re replicating a table of data in your work which you’ve taken directly from one of our resources, you’ll need to reference it. Even if you’ve adapted it in some way, you’ll still need to give credit to the source. Read our previous post on referencing images, diagrams, charts or tables to find out how.

Any questions?

As always, if you have any questions about referencing, please contact MIRC or the Kings Norton Library.

Feature image from Pixabay. Available at: https://pixabay.com/photos/stock-trading-monitor-business-1863880/