Business Management Capstone (Assignment Guide)

Databases are collections of information

• peer-reviewed articles from academic (Scholarly) journals
• articles in newspapers and magazines
• eBooks
• streaming video
• reports, data, and statistics on national and international companies
• laws and legal rulings

Credo Reference is a great starting point to learn the basics of a business topic. 

EBSCO and Gale are library database providers that offers several business-related choices. 

All Databases Have Tools and Filters

• TOOLS
  • search boxes (basic, advanced)
  • cite/citation tools
  • email, send, or share tools
  • list of source types (academic journals, magazines, newspapers, videos, etc)
  • print tool
  • permalink - special link on the article page that links you back to the article
    • NOTE! -  do not use the browser link at the top of the screen; it links to nowhere

• FILTERS
  • search results in hundred or thousands of articles - use Filters to narrow your results
    • Full Text (EBSCO) - check this filter to show only titles that also have complete articles, rather than just a summary
    • Date or date range filters - these may refer to publication or copyright dates 
    • Source Type: use this filter to choose the what type of article you want to see - 
      • newspaper
      • magazine
      • academic journal,

Tools and Filters will be located on ether the left, right, or top of the database page, depending on the database.

This video below introduces basic and advanced search, strategies for developing a search, and some general research tips.

Basic and Advanced Searching

Basic Searching

At different stages in your search for information you will use different search strategies. When you're brainstorming to see what is out there, do a basic search. Enter a single word or a short phrase about your topic into the database's search box. Keep it simple: "pandemic," "college education."

Skim the list of articles that appear. Are there a lot of articles on your topic idea or just a few? How hard will it be to thoroughly research and write about this topic? If there are just a few you may want to choose different search terms. Look at your notes from the encyclopedia databases for ideas. If you still get too few results, you might want to change your topic. You're only at Step 2 in the research process so there's still time.

Advanced Searching

If you are looking for more detailed information about your topic, try one of these advanced search strategies.

• Put quotation marks " " around a phrase - "college education." This forces the database to search for the phrase "college education," not the words "college" and "education" separately.
• Put an asterisk (*), or truncator, at the end of a word will search for everything that begins with that group of letters in most databases
  • Example: comput* will return all words starting with four letters; computing, computer, compute, etc.  
• You can also try a question mark (?) within a word to include multiple spellings
  • Example: wom?n will find both woman and women.
• Focus your search by using Boolean operators; AND, OR,  NOT
  • Example: pets AND cats OR dogs, NOT hamsters
• Some databases allow you to perform proximity searches
  • Example: the following phrase, movies w/3 drugs is searching for instances when the term movies is within 3 words of the term drugs. This method works well in a Google search.
• Consider using alternate terms, or synonyms. for words,
  • Example:  society = culture, community, civilization, etc.
• Broaden your search. If you don't find an article on your topic don't assume it hasn't been written. You might just be using the wrong terms or might be searching too specifically to find it. Try broader terms.
• Look carefully at the results from your search. If there is a great article, look for the subject headings (often bolded) or a list of subjects. These are database-generated terms ("machine language"). Use these terms in future searches. 

Basic Search Terms and Strategies

Create a list of words that you can enter into a database search box:

• Nouns (names of some thing or someone) work best as search terms.
• Make a list of words, word variations, and synonyms (different words that mean the same thing) to use when searching the databases.
• Examples:
  • entrepreneur; entrepreneurship
  • SWOT, SWOT analysis
  • management; manager; operations management; project management; strategic management
  • business; business model; business structure; small business; micro-business
  • product; services
  • company; corporation
  • personnel; employee; staff
  • profit; profit margin
  • value; value proposition
  • consumer; customer, target-market; market segmentation; niche market