The following books and guides are also good resources for learning essential terminology and understanding business resources.
1. Learn the industry's NAICS code (North American Industry Classification System code). Search with this code as a keyword or filter in business databases to locate reports, articles, data, and companies specific to that industry. Exploring the NAICS structure can also help with narrowing or broadening your industry focus.
2. Brainstorm different ways to describe that industry, thinking of both your focused industry (e.g., scheduled air passenger transportation) as well as the overall sector (e.g., transportation, air transportation) to which it belongs. Create a list of keywords and phrases to use as potential search terms.
3. When necessary, use Boolean operators to combine keywords, phrases, and NAICS codes to expand or narrow your search results in a database.
4. Consider the geographical focus of your research. Most industry reports are specific to a single country or region, so pay attention to these designations when gathering resources.
5. Pay attention to the publication date as you explore resources. When possible, filter your results to the last 2-3 years for the most recent data available. Many - but not all - industry reports have the publication year in the title, alongside the industry name and geography.
6. Gather information from a variety of sources. Search within multiple databases, find different kinds of source types (reports, news, snapshots, etc.), and evaluate information from several publishers, organizations, authors, editors, and/or analysts. Diversifying the information and data you gather is the best way to ensure your own research is unbiased, accurate, and inclusive.
7. Need more help with your search? Check out the tutorial below, or contact your librarian:
Before using databases, gather basic details on the company with a general search engine like Google. Example: search results in Bing for the grocery store Sprouts. Try to gather the following:
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