Help with referencing a summarized data from multiple sources into one single reference

Question

What would be the best way to reference the following case:

I have taken some reported financial figures from the annual reports ranging from 2017 to 2023 of 5 different companies. Using those financial figures I derived my own calculations and findings, which I want to include in my paper. The findings are divided into different ratios, where I plan to have a paragraph designed for each of the ratios.

That said, I also read that according to APA it is not allowed to include only one reference at the end of each paragraph as it is hard to understand which thoughts are from the author and which were taken from somewhere else.

Therefore, I am not sure how to include all those 5 companies and 6 years into a single reference, especially as I have to repeat the reference across multiple sentences. When generating the reference through Zotero it gives me this:

(Company A, 2019, p. X, 2020, p. X, 2021, p. X, 2022, p. X, 2023, p. X, 2023, p. X; Company B, 2019, p. X, 2020, p. X, 2021, p. X, 2022, p. X, 2023a, p. X, 2023b, p. X; Company C, 2018, p. X, 2019, p. X, 2020, p. X, 2021, p. X, 2022, p. X, 2023, p. X)

However, especially if I have to paste it on multiple places inside the paragraph it would make it hard for the reader and also rather unpleasant (my opinion). Therefore, I am curious if there might be a better way for me to reference the source without needing 3 lines in word for a single reference. Thank you in advance!

PS: Was thinking to remove the page number and just do Company A 2019-2023...., but was wondering as the annual report are 100+ pages it might not be a good idea as it will be hard to find the referenced numbers in them if the page is excluded.

Answer 1

This seems like a case where you have a hammer and you're trying to treat everything like a nail. Including that chunky three-line reference multiple times in a paragraph would indeed look terrible and be unhelpful to your readers (unless I'm checking your work I'm most interested in your findings), so it's worth taking a step back and see if there isn't a more suitable tool to use.

Here it seems you're not really taking ideas from the cited sources, but collecting numbers to form a data set that you then process within the article. Since you mention that "the findings are divided into different ratios", one possibility might be to create one or more tables with rows corresponding to company/year combinations and columns to different data and evaluated ratios. Put the references on the relevant rows within the table to make it clear where specific data originated (example). Then you can just cross-reference the table(s) from within your paragraphs. Relatedly, it can make sense to define your data set within a methods section along with the sources it was collected from, and then refer back to that data set in these paragraphs. Combining these two approaches is often ideal. Either way, the point would be that now you can write paragraphs discussing your findings (the computed ratios) without having to cite the sources for the numbers that went into the calculations over and over again.