WRD 203: Business Writing   Tags: business, writing  

This guide will be helpful in identifying resources for your annotated bibliography and research paper. However, this guide is not comprehensive, so you might find other resources by searching databases other than those included here. For a list of resources arranged by broad subject areas, check out the Research Guides by Subject.

Please be aware that in some cases you might have to think broadly.  For example, if you can't find an article about trainers and ethics, you might need to search for sports medicine and ethics. Or, if you cannot find an academic journal article about the Hope Center in Lexington, you might do some first-hand research (its website, newspaper articles, interviews) and set it in the context of scholarly journal articles dealing with services and resources for the homeless.

Before you jump into your research, consider the following.  What kind of information do you need? 

• Background information
• Historical context
• Definitions of terminology
• Dates
• Biographical information
• Statistics

What kind of resources can you use and how many of each do you need? 

• Books
• Magazine articles
• Scholarly journal articles
• Newspaper articles
• Websites

Knowing what kind of information you need and what resources contain such information can make your searching more efficient and effective.  So the first step to effective research is understanding your assignment and knowing what kind of information you need.

Exploring a topic in a standard or specialized encyclopedia can help you develop a research outline, place your topic in a historical context, and identify research terms, people of interest, and dates and timelines, etc. 

Although we have hundreds of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, handbooks and other paper reference sources on our shelves, we also have several outstanding online collections. The following databases might be of help in this preliminary research step:

Gale Virtual Reference Library is a collection of full-text encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources on many different subjects.

Oxford Reference contains concise coverage of a broad range of subjects and is particularly good for quotations and multi-language dictionaries.

Opposing Viewpoints is another good source for articles on current event topics. If you are having trouble deciding on a topic to write about, Opposing Viewpoints can give you some good ideas. Opposing Viewpoints includes short essays, academic articles, newspaper articles, reference, statistics, related websites and other data.

CQ Researcher provides reporting and analysis on issues in the news. Each single-themed, 13,000-word report offers coverage of political and social issues, with regular reports on topics in health, international affairs, education, the environment, technology and the U.S. economy. Reports include a background and chronology, an assessment of the current situation, tables and maps, pro/con statements from representatives of opposing positions, and bibliographies of key sources.

Consider search words and phrases and combinations you might use to search for information on your topic. Most databases allow keyword searching, which basically allows you to enter any word(s) or phrase or combination thereof for very broad search results.

Databases also allow searching by controlled vocabulary such as subject headings or descriptors. The most widely used subject headings are the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). A subject database might have its own thesaurus. If a database you are searching offers a thesaurus, a subject heading list or a descriptors list, consider consulting it for terms and phrases to make your search targeted and precise. Often they offer suggestions for broader, narrower and related terms that can be used to modify your search if need be.

Take a moment to develop a few possible words or phrases to search.

For instance, a few synonyms for business are employment, field, livelihood, occupation, vocation, work. More specific terms might be accounting, nursing, athletic trainer, etc.

A few synonyms for ethics are belief, conduct, conscience, convention, moral code, morality, mores, principles, standards, value.

You can combine search terms using “AND” to make your search results more specific.  For example:  

“nursing AND ethics”

“Starbucks AND company ethics”

“big business AND social responsibility”

Not finding what you want? Call, email, chat with or visit a UK Reference Librarian who will be glad to help you.