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Business, Management & Marketing Research Guide

 

 

The links in this guide offer an entry point to useful sources for Business, Management & Marketing Research.  

Some things to keep in mind:

  • Private companies are much more difficult to research than public companies.  
  • Industry specific content may be found across a variety of sources.
  • These resources can be used for a variety of research purposes, including product development, competitive intelligence, and even job evaluations.
  • Company research is best conducted with multiple sources, including those not typically labeled as business resources.
  • Get creative when looking for materials related to your business topic.  Use the box below to make sure the information you find is credible.  

Citation Resources

Different professions have their own requirements for documentation and publish their own style manuals.  At HACC three styles are used by faculty in various disciplines:

  • American Psychological Association (APA)
  • Council of Science Editors (CSE)
  • Modern Language Association (MLA)

​Ask your professor which style they would like you to use, and get help citing your sources on the Citation Guide

Use these evaluation methods to determine if a web resource is right for you:

The four steps of the SIFT Method: Stop; Investigate the source; Find better coverage; Trace claims, quotes and media to the original context.SIFT Method: SIFT is a series of steps to take when evaluating the reliability of web sites and their claims. It is based on an approach used by professional fact-checkers, and was developed by Mike Caulfield from Washington State University.

You can find more detailed information about SIFT in the Introduction to Research Guide.

 

Rhetorical Triangle: This method asks you to consider the author, intended audience, and purpose of a website when you evaluate its reliability. Adapted from the University Writing Program at Northern Arizona University.

More information about the Rhetorical Triangle can be found in our Introduction to Research Guide.

 

 

 

 

Definition: In an instructional setting, plagiarism occurs when a writer deliberately uses someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledg­ing its source.

While some types of writing aren't as concerned with documenting sources, ideas, images, sounds, etc. traditional academic writing requires these best practices.

Sources: wpacouncil.org and owl.english.purdue.edu

 

For more information:

Try these to get more specific or broader results

Wild Card

  • Use a * to include forms or variants of words in your search
  • Example: type test* to search for test, testing, tests

Adding a ~

  • Adding a tilde (~) to your search term will return related terms.
  • Example: ~nutrition will search also nutrition, food and health

Adding a -

  • Adding a negative (-) to your search term will take away that term in your search.
  • Example: Pets -cats will not find web sites that focus upon cats as pets.

Phrase Search

  • By inserting quotes around an exact phase, you will search only the words you type in, in that exact order with no words in between term.
  • Example: "consumer product chemistry"

Boolean Operators

  • Using AND, OR, NOT can broaden or narrow a search depending on your inquiry. "AND" will give you results that contain both words. "OR" will give results about either word and "NOT" will not search the term preceding.
  • Example: Summer AND Flower, Summer OR Flower, Summer NOT flower