1. SIC & NAICS Codes Finding the Codes
Today we are going to use two databases provided by the federal government to locate the SIC and NAICS codes for your industry. Note, many libraries also have books that provide the codes and definitions and you may opt to use those instead. If you do so, be sure your citation for these two matches the books as the citations given as examples here are for the online database results.
Printable version available at

2. Objectives
At the conclusion of this tutorial you should be able to do the following:
Locate the SIC and NAICS codes for your industry
Write a correct APA citation for each source you used to locate the SIC and NAICS codes.

3. Enter the URL: Open a new browser window.
In the Address bar type the following address:
Note a link is provided in Unit 2 in the course content as well.

4. SIC search page
The page that opens is page from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Originally developed by the Office of Management and Budget, because OSHA historically is among the major users of the SIC codes for data collection and analysis, this agency maintains this search page for the SIC codes.
To find your SIC code for your industry, enter a keyword for the industry in the second search box and hit the enter key on your keyboard.

5. Results
In the search I did only one entry was returned. It is possible if you enter a more common term like automobile, you will return more than one result. If that is the case, you may need to look at several if not all to determine the correct SIC code.
Let’s look at this result and see the full definition for this code. To do that click on the linked result.

6. Definition
The definition is provided for you.

7. How to cite? Correct citation:
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (n.d.). SIC description for 5411: Grocery stores. Retrieved February 5, 2017 from
To cite this “publication” you need to know a couple of points about the publication.
First, it is a government document.
Second, the page you see with the definition is the result page from a “database.”
Third, because this is a “database” available from a government agency we’ll create a rather hybrid citation format for this page.
You will note since this is a government publication, we likely will not find a personal author. Instead we want to find the responsible agency. In this case the agency is OSHA. Because OSHA is a rather well-known agency we’ll begin our citation with OSHA rather than United States. Department of Labor.
Next we are going to add a date to the citation. Since no date can be determined on this page, (usually at the top or bottom of the page) we are going to use the (n.d.). to indicate no date was found on the page.
Next we want to find the title of the page. In this case the title is: SIC description for 5411: Grocery stores. Note the title of this page is treated like a book title with only the first word of the title and subtitle in capital letters.
Next you will need to include a “Retrieved from” statement. Because we found this result using a database, we are only going to include the URL for the “database.”

8. Enter the URL
Having located the SIC code, let’s next look for the NAICS code.
Enter the following URL into the address bar:
Note this URL is also provided in Unit 2 in the Course content.

9. NAICS search page
Here is the search page for NAICS. Like the SIC code the NAICS code was originally published by the Office of Management and Budget. However, this page is maintained by the Census Bureau as they are one of the primary users of this code for data collection and analysis. The most recent update is the 2012 edition. You can search for the 2002 or 2007 codes as well. Let’s enter a term for your industry in the 2012 search. In the example above I have entered grocery since that was one of the words in the name for my industry in the SIC codes. Click on NAICS Search to begin the search.
Note you can also search from NAICS to SIC and SIC to NAICS.

10. Results
As you can see there were more results—this is because NAICS provides for many, many more specific classifications of industries.
If you look through the results, you’ll see the one that is most relevant to my study of grocery stores and supermarkets Let’s click on that code to see a full definition

11. Definition
This page is the definition for : supermarkets and other grocery (except convenience) stores.
In addition to the definition, there is also a chart that tells the user what the NAICS code was in 2002, and 1997.

12. How to cite? The correct citation follows:
United States Census Bureau. (2017) NAICS definitions: supermarkets and other grocery (except convenience) stores . Retrieved February 5, 2017 from
To cite this “publication” you need to know a couple of points about the publication.
First, it is a government document.
Second, the page you see with the definition is the result page from a “database.”
Third, because this is a “database” available from a government agency we’ll create a rather hybrid citation format for this page.
You will note since this is a government publication, we likely will not find a personal author. Instead we want to find the responsible agency. In this case the agency is the Census Bureau. Because many nations and even some states have Census Offices and Bureaus, we will preface the agency name with United States even though it is one of the most well-known agencies in the federal government. Also, because the Census Bureau is correctly referred to as United States Census Bureau we are not going to place a period between United States and Census Bureau.
Next we are going to add a date to the citation is clearly listed as the date, so 2002 will be listed as the date.
Next we want to find the title of the page. In this case the title is: NAICS definitions:  supermarkets and other grocery (execpt convenience) stores . Note the title of this page is treated like a book title with only the first word of the title and subtitle in capital letters.
Next you will need to include a “Retrieved from” statement. Because we found this result using a database, we are only going to include the URL for the “database.”

13. Thank you Thank you for viewing this tutorial.
Remember if you have problems locating the SIC or NAICS codes, you may contact the instructors for assistance.
In addition to needing to provide the codes for your industry you will also need the definition. Writing a good citation now, will facilitate the compilation of the your project as the semester goes along.
Be sure to take the practice quiz to receive participation credit for this resource.