Business Databases: Tutorials

3 Basic Steps

• Choose Your Topic
  • Decide what you want to learn more about
  • OR start with some aspect of an assigned topic
• Find Background Information about your topic
  • Use Credo Reference (Library Database)
• Find Specific Information about your topic
  • Use business databases like Business: Insights (Gale)
  • financial information, business strategies, 
  • company or industry information 

For more in-depth information about business research see the boxes below.

Finding Business Information

• go into the information-seeking process with an open mind
  • adopt an exploration mindset - find out what information exists about your topic
  • you are not looking for any one answer to a question or problem 
• you are exploring the information that already exists about your topic
  • NOTE: sometimes business information does not exist in Western Library databases or publicly on the web
    • business information is often proprietary
      • you will only be able to find the information a company is willing to share publicly
• NOTE: you will likely not find all the information you need in one single source
  • you may need to extrapolate information from a variety of sources to deduce or build an approximate picture of what your business might reasonably look like, search for things like
    • menu items and prices
    • product and labor costs
    • number of locations and hours open
    • demographics - population, market, etc.
• use business databases for information about industries and some companies - the bigger the better
  • NOTE: you may not be able to find information about small or local businesses in library databases
    • find the company's website and look at the "About.." page to see if there is anything there you can use
    • consider contacting the business by phone or email, explain that you are a business student, and ask if they would be willing to share information by email or in an interview
• use company websites for financial and organization information

How to think about finding information

1. explore multiple sources to find out what information has been published about your topic
   • skim and scan the article - look for facts you can use (size of company, revenue, demographic, etc.)
   • jot them down along with the title and database (you'll need it later
2. discover what you don't know and what you need to learn
3. identify key facts, details, and concepts that relate to your topic
4. evaluate the credibility of the information
5. analyze if the information is useful and how you might use it
6. synthesize (bring together) the pieces information to complete your assignment or project

Break the process down into individual steps 

• Step 1: choose a topic interesting to you
• Step 2: make a list of search terms related to your topic
• Step 3: find background information - use Credo Reference database 
  • definitions and concepts (business management, entrepreneurship, etc.) and
  • basic facts/ideas (key people, business types, names, dates/timelines, places, history, etc
  • use background information to identify an area you want to focus on
  • identify new search terms based on what you learn 
    • write it down so you remember it
• Step 4: look for detailed research about your business topic
  • scholarly articles, data, statistics
    • database: MasterFILE Complete (magazine and newspaper articles)
    • database: Business Insights (Fortune 100 company data and information)
    • database: Academic Search Premier (scholarly/peer-reviewed articles)
• Step 5: evaluate your articles by asking: 
  • is the article useful for your assignment?
  • is the information up-to-date based on your topic?
  • is the author qualified to write about your topic?
  • did you verify the information with other sources?
  • is the article factual and unbiased?
  • is the purpose of the article to educate? inform? 
  • is it written for your reader?  
• Step 6: combine what you already knew about your topic with the new knowledge you learned during the research process