For your Business Report assignment, you will be required to conduct research on a business related topic. It is important to find relevant, credible, quality information from multiple perspectives in order to present a balanced and quality argument or recommendation. This guide will assist you through the research process as you search for information.
For any search, it is helpful to develop a search strategy before you begin so that your search is narrowed and focused.
Decide what you want to research based upon your assignment requirements. Then, turn your topic into a research question. Focus your search on answering all aspects of that question.
EXAMPLE:
Your topic is "an aspect of discrimination in the Canadian workplace".
Your research question could be: "What is age discrimination in the workplace and what are Canadian businesses doing to prevent it?"
Identify the main concepts in your question and develop keywords based upon that question. Brainstorm synonyms and related concepts for your keywords.
Make your search make your search more effective by using the following to separate your keywords (terms):
AND - find all the terms (ex. "age discrimination" AND workplace)
OR - find any of the terms (ex. workplace OR workforce)
NOT - exclude a certain term (ex. Canada NOT "United States")
EXAMPLE:
Your keywords could be:
Age Discrimination, Ageism
Workplace, workforce, business
Canada, Canadian
You can find credible information using Library Search, the main search box on the library homepage. You also may need to select subject specific resources and/or search engines like Google to fully answer your research question. It is good practice to draw information from a variety of sources.
EXAMPLE: A search string based upon the above concepts could be:
("Age discrimination" OR ageism) AND (Work* OR business) AND Canad*
Search for your topic, refine your search string, and then search again.