1. Toward the Report: Finding, Evaluating, and Processing Information

2. Business and Professional Writing
Research
Process
Understand
Topic and
Assignment 1 6
Interpret
Findings
Find and
Access
Information 2 5
Analyze
Data 3
Evaluate and
Finalize Sources
When it comes to finding information, many people make the mistake of rushing into the research process without developing a plan. They go to the library, log on to a database or the Internet, type in some key words, produce almost endless resources, and immediately begin taking notes on whatever comes up under their topic. Resist the temptation. If your research strategy is weak, any business decisions based on your research will also be weak. Adopt an organized approach to research by completing six tasks: (1) identify the right questions; (2) find and access secondary and primary information; (3) evaluate and finalize your sources; (4) process your information; (5) analyze your data; and (6) interpret your findings.
In most cases you’ll perform tasks in order; however, the amount of time you spend on a single task will depend on the nature and volume of information you need, as well as on the purpose of your research. Conducting research often requires jumping around, branching off, or looping back; that is, your discoveries may lead you to additional questions, which require further research, and so on.
Process
Information 4
Business and Professional Writing

3. Understand the Topic and Assignment Business and Professional Writing
Preliminary
Information
Problem
Statement
Questions and
Subquestions
Businesspeople conduct research for any number of reasons. In most cases you will be unfamiliar with the subject matter you are investigating, so first you’ll need to gather some preliminary information.
The best way to learn about something new is to browse through materials on your topic. Once you have gathered some preliminary information, use what you have learned to clarify your assignment. If you’re conducting research at the request of someone else, make sure you’re both on the same page. If you’re conducting research for reasons of your own, use your preliminary information to make your purpose as clear and specific as possible. Develop a problem statement, a statement that defines the problem or purpose of your research—even if it’s a simple one. Finally, restate the problem as a question. Shaping your purpose in question form will help you focus on exactly the information you need to complete your research.
If the problem you must solve is complex, organize your research efforts by dividing your main question into subquestions. Brainstorming, generating random lists, using the journalistic approach, and developing a question-and-answer chain are techniques you can use to rephrase your main questions into a series of subquestions you must answer.
Business and Professional Writing

4. Using Secondary Sources of Information
Business
Books
Electronic
Databases
Newspapers
Periodicals
Directories
Almanacs
Statistical
Resources
Government
Publications
In most cases you’ll begin your research by looking for sources of secondary information—information on your subject that already has been collected. Although less timely than journal articles, business books provide in-depth coverage of a variety of business topics.
An electronic database is a computer-searchable collection of information, often categorized by subject areas such as business, law, or technology.
Libraries subscribe to only a select number of newspapers and store a limited number of back issues in print. However, they frequently subscribe to databases containing newspaper articles in full text.
Most periodicals fall into one of four categories: (1) popular magazines, (2) trade journals, (3) business magazines, and (4) academic journals.
More than 14,000 directories are published in the United States. They are useful for marketers, job seekers, or anyone who needs a prospect list.
Almanacs are handy guides to factual and statistical information about countries, politics, the labor force, and so on. The Statistical Abstract of the United States contains statistics about life, work, government, population patterns, health issues, business, crime, and the environment.
For information on a law, a court decision, or current population patterns and business trends, consult government documents. A librarian can direct you to the information you want.
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5. Business Information in Cyberspace
Internet
Public Library
Company Websites
News Release Sites
Today’s most popular source of company and industry information is the Internet, with information ranging from current news and industry trends to specific company-related data.
One good place to start on the World Wide Web is the Internet Public Library. This site offers links to high-quality business resources that offer company profiles, trade data, business news, tax and legal advice, small-business information, prepared forms and documents, biographies of executives, financial reports, job postings, online publications, and so on.
If you’re looking for specific company information, your best source may be the company’s Website. These sites generally include detailed information about the firm’s products, services, history, mission, strategy, financial performance, and employment needs.
You can obtain news releases and general company news from news release sites such as PRNewswire and Business Wire. These two sites offer free databases of news releases from companies subscribing to their services. News release sites are also good places to look for announcements of new products, management changes, earnings, dividends, mergers, acquisitions, and other company information.
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6. Business and Professional Writing
Search
Engines
Directories
Portals
Searching
The Internet
Search engines are Internet tools that identify and screen resources. Also called spiders or crawlers, the engines travel the Web automatically, find new sites, and place a copy of these Webpages in their database. When a Web surfer enters key search words, the engine scans its index and returns the addresses of all documents that match those words. Each search engine has qualities that distinguish it from the others, and not all search engines operate in the same way. These differences create significant variations in search results.
Whereas a search engine uses an automated robot (software) to find and index Websites, a directory uses humans to do this job. When you use a search engine, therefore, you often find more Websites than when you use a directory. But, directories often yield more-precise results.
Both search engines and directories can also become portals by adding features to their Websites. Portals are Internet gateways—your everyday first stop on the Web—that offer some means for navigating the Internet. The following Websites are portals: America Online, Yahoo!, Lycos, Infoseek, Microsoft Service Network, and Netscape.
Business and Professional Writing

7. Appropriate Databases Business and Professional Writing
Searching Databases
Select
Appropriate Databases
Use Short Phrases
and Single Terms
Use Multiple
Search Engines
Avoid Stopwords
Select appropriate databases. You’ll want a good business database; but journals on your topic may be in a database that also includes journals on psychology, computers, or medicine.
Use multiple search engines. Don’t limit yourself to a single search engine, especially if you are looking for less popular topics. Try metacrawlers, special engines that search several search engines at once.
Translate concepts into key words and phrases. If you want to determine the “effect of TQM on company profits,” you should select the key words TQM, total quality management, profits, sales, companies, and corporations.
Use a short phrase or single term rather than a long phrase. Search engines look for the words exactly as you key them in. If the words occur, but not in the same order, you may miss relevant hits.
Do not use stopwords. Stopwords are those words the computer disregards and will not search for. Common ones are: a, an, the, of, by, with, for, and to.
Do not use words contained in the name of the database. Using words such as business or finance in the ABI Inform database will work, but they appear so often that searching for them slows processing time and adds no precision to your results.
Replace Concepts
with Key Words
Avoid Words in
the Database’s Name
Business and Professional Writing

8. Logical Relationships Business and Professional Writing
Searching Databases
Use Variations
of Search Terms
Use Proximity
Operators
Specify
Logical Relationships
Use Wildcards
Use variations of your terms. Use abbreviations (CEO, CPA), synonyms (man, male), related terms (child, adolescent, youth), different spellings (dialog, dialogue), or singular and plural forms (woman,women).
Specify a logical relationship between the key words. Must the document contain both profits and companies, or should it contain TQM or total quality management and profits or sales?
Use Boolean operators. Narrow or broaden your search by including AND, OR, and NOT. Many search engines automatically include Boolean operators in their strategies even though you can’t see them on the screen. Either insert your own or review the instructions for your search engine.
Use proximity operators. To specify how close one of your key words should be to another, use a proximity operator such as NEAR. For example, the search phrase “marketing NEAR/2 organizations” means that marketing must be within two words of organizations.
Use wildcards. Wildcard characters help you find plurals and alternate spellings of key words. For example, by using a question mark in the word organi?ations, you’ll find documents with both organisations (British spelling) and organizations.
Evaluate the precision and quality of your search results to refine your search if necessary. If you end up with more than 60 to 100 links to sort through, refine your search.
Use Boolean
Operators
Refine Searches
as Needed
Business and Professional Writing

9. Searching in Cyberspace Business and Professional Writing
Gathering
Information
Searching in Cyberspace
Pull
Technology
Push
Personal
Agents
When you obtain information from the Internet by using a search engine or directory, you pull information from the Internet. Another way to obtain information form the Internet is to have it pushed or delivered to you. The concept of push technology soon fell short of its promise because channels pushed too much irrelevant information to subscribers’ desktops. Subscribers were forced to dig through mounds of data, which glutted computer networks, slowing them down.
Push technology was superseded by such personal agents as My Yahoo! that mold desktop information to your personal interests and exclude the types of generic information previously delivered by push channels. A personal agent scans a wide range of Websites, finds information that matches the user’s preferences, and delivers it to her or his desktop (or tells the user where to go get it). Eventually the information gets more and more targeted as the user instructs the personal agent to “find more of this” or to “eliminate that.”
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10. Business and Professional Writing
Tracking Progress
Take Notes
Copy
Search Results
Bookmark
Websites
Record
Comments
As you find and review source materials, take some brief notes to keep track of your progress.
When using the Internet, note relevant Websites by bookmarking and keeping them in a separate bookmark folder. Alternatively, you can download or print out the actual Webpages. If the library database you’re using includes material in full text, print out helpful articles; otherwise print out a copy of your search results and ask the librarian for assistance in finding the articles listed.
To record your comments, use note cards or Post-It Notes, or write on copies of the material itself. Develop a system that works for you. In addition, prepare a detailed bibliography of each source you intend to use later.
Download
or Print Files
Prepare a
Bibliography
Business and Professional Writing

11. Business and Professional Writing
Primary Information
Documents
Observations
Experiments
Often the most useful methods of collecting primary information is examining internal documents, such as company sales reports, memos, balance sheets, income statements, policy statements, brochures, newsletters, annual reports, correspondence with customers or suppliers, and contracts. You can often find a great deal of information in company databases, and by scouring company’s files, you can often piece together an accurate, factual, historical record from the tidbits of evidence revealed in various letters, memos, and reports.
Another common method of collecting primary business information is making formal observations. However, it can be expensive and time consuming, and the value of the observation depends on the reliability of the observer.
Conducting experiments is another method of collecting primary information, but this method is far more common in technical fields than in general business. An experiment requires extensive, accurate, and measurable manipulation of the factors involved—not only tweaking those variables being tested but also controlling those variables that aren’t being tested. This sort of experiment management is usually very expensive.
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12. Business and Professional Writing
Effective Surveys
Provide
Clear Instructions
Use Short
Questionnaires
Get Easy-to-Analyze
Questions
Avoid Leading
Ask One
Question at a Time
Pretest All
Surveys include everything from the one time, one-on-one interview to the distribution of thousands of questionnaires. A survey is reliable if it produces identical results when repeated. A survey is valid if it measures what it’s intended to measure. The following guidelines will help you produce results that are both valid and reliable:
Provide clear instructions. Respondents need to know exactly how to fill out your questionnaire.
Keep the questionnaire short and easy to answer. Ask only questions that are relevant to your research. Formulate questions that provide easily tabulated or analyzed answers. Remember, numbers and facts are easier to summarize than opinions.
Avoid leading questions. Questions that lead to a particular answer bias your survey. If you ask, "Do you prefer that we stay open in the evenings for customer convenience?" you'll get a yes answer. Instead, ask, "What time of day do you normally do your shopping?”
Ask only one thing at a time. A compound question such as “Do you read books and magazines regularly?” doesn't allow for the respondent who reads one but not the other.
Pretest the questionnaire. Have a sample group identify questions that are subject to misinterpretation.
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13. Business and Professional Writing
Effective Interviews
Purpose
Structure
Information
Required
Collect Information
Make Decisions
Clarify Issues
Overall Length
Stylistic Issues
Organization
Participants
Interview
Getting information straight from an expert can be another effective method for collecting primary information. Interviews are planned conversations with a predetermined purpose that involve asking and answering questions. Even though they are relatively easy to conduct, interviews require careful planning and a lot of time.
In a typical information interview, the interviewer seeks facts that bear on a decision or that contribute to basic understanding. The action is controlled by the interviewer, who asks a list of questions designed to elicit information from the interviewee. It’s important to decide in advance what kind of information you want and how you will use it. This planning will save you time and build goodwill with the people you interview.
Planning an interview is similar to planning any other form of communication. Start by analyzing your purpose, learning about the other person, and forming your main idea. Then decide on length, style, and organization.
Good interviews have an opening, a body, and a close. The opening establishes rapport and orients the interviewee to the remainder of the session. The body is used for asking questions. In the close, summarize the outcome, preview what will come next, and underscore the rapport that has been established.
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14. Business and Professional Writing
Types of Questions
More
Information Quality
Less
Open-Ended
Direct
Open-Ended
Restatement
Close-Ended
The answers you receive are influenced by the types of questions you ask, the way you ask them, and your subject’s cultural and language background. In addition, be aware of ethical implications. Consider providing a list of questions a day or two before the interview, especially if you’d like to quote your subject in writing or if your questions might require your subject to conduce research or think extensively about the answers.
Most questions fall along a continuum of openness. Open-ended questions invite the interviewee to offer an opinion, not just a yes, no, or one-word answer: Such questions help you learn the reasons behind a decision rather than just the facts. However, they diminish your control of the interview. Closed-ended questions require yes or no answers or short responses: Such questions produce specific information, save time, require less effort from the interviewee, and eliminate bias and prejudice in answers. On the other hand, they also limit the respondent’s initiative and may prevent important information from being revealed.
Direct open-ended questions suggest a response: “What have you done about smoothing out intercultural clashes in your department?” These questions give you more control while still giving the interviewee some freedom in framing a response. Restatement questions mirror a respondent’s previous answer and invite the respondent to expand on that answer: “You said you dislike sales quotas. Is that correct?” They also signal to the interviewee that you’re paying attention.
Less
Interviewer Control
More
Business and Professional Writing

15. Business and Professional Writing
Preparing Questions
Think About
Sequence
Mix Types of
Questions
Ask Smart
Edit
Rate the
Limit
the Number
The following guidelines will help you come up with a great set of interview questions:
Think about sequence. Arrange your questions in a way that helps uncover layers of information or that helps the subject tell you a complete story.
Rate your questions and highlight the ones you really need answers to. If you start to run out of time during the interview, you may have to skip less important questions.
Ask smart questions. If you ask a question that your subject perceives to be less than intelligent, the interview could go downhill in a hurry.
Use a mix of question types. Vary the pacing of your interview by using open-ended, direct open-ended, closed-ended, and restatement questions.
Limit the number of questions. Don’t try to cover more questions than you have time for. People can speak at a rate of about 125 to 150 words (about one paragraph) per minute. If you’re using a mix of question types, you can probably handle about 20 questions in a half-hour. Remember that open-ended questions take longer to answer than other types do.
Edit your questions. Try to make your questions as neutral and as easy to understand as possible. Then practice them several times to make sure you’re ready for the interview
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16. Business and Professional Writing
Processing
Interview
Information
Write Down
Your Ideas
Review Notes
Organize
the Material
Transcribe
Recordings
When you’ve concluded the interview, take a few moments to write down your thoughts, go over your notes, and organize your material. Look for important themes, helpful facts or statistics, and direct quotes. Fill in any blanks while the interview is fresh in your mind. If you made a tape recording, transcribe it (take down word for word what the person said) or take notes from the tape just as you would while listening to someone in person.
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17. Evaluating and Selecting Sources
Honesty and
Reliability
The Author
Timeliness
Potential
Bias
Data Collection
Methods
Completeness
Purpose of
the Material
Independent
Verification
Logic and
Good Sense
Once you’ve gathered your sources of primary and secondary information, you’ll want to review them carefully to select the best ones for your information needs. Common sense will help you judge the credibility of the sources you plan to use. Ask yourself the following questions about each piece of material:
1. Does the source have a reputation for honesty and reliability?
2. Is the source potentially biased?
3. What is the purpose of the material?
4. Is the author credible?
5. Where did the source get its information?
6. Can you verify the material independently?
7. Is the material current?
8. Is the material complete?
9. Do the source's claims stand up to scrutiny?
At the end of your evaluation, you should have two piles of information: those sources you want to use and those you have eliminated. How will you know when you have enough information? You have enough when you can answer all the questions that began the research project and you begin noticing that sources are becoming redundant.
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18. Process the Information
Getting
Organized
Reading the
Material
Taking Notes
Once you have selected your sources, it’s time to start using what you’ve found. That means you’ll need to go through your research and take some extensive notes.
Before you start reading or taking notes, organize your research into a logical order. For instance, group the material according to topic; then divide it chronologically within each grouping.
When you read a document to take notes, you need not read every word. Read the topic sentences first to decide whether the paragraph may contain useful information. If it does, then read the entire paragraph.
The recording system that most students use (and many instructors recommend) is taking notes on three-by-five-inch index cards. Note cards are easy to use, carry, sort, and arrange. However, the portability of laptops and advances in software make it easier today to take notes by computer. By recording notes in electronic format instead of on handwritten cards, you can easily search for words (using the “find” function), sort the notes by column headings, and copy information directly into the document draft.
You may find that the best solution is using a combination of index cards and computer software. Whichever method you choose, be sure to take complete notes so that you can avoid backtracking to look up something you forgot.
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19. Presenting Information
Direct Quotes
Enhance
the Argument
Preserve
Original Text
Paraphrasing
Enhance
Your Understanding
Condense
Original Text
Use direct quotations when the original language will enhance your argument or when rewording the passage would lessen its impact. However, too much quoting creates a choppy patchwork of varying styles and gives the impression that you’ve lost control of your material. Rather than quoting excessively, you can paraphrase material, or express it in your own word; that is, present information in a fresh, condensed manner that demonstrates your complete understanding of the material. Here are some guidelines:
Reread the original passage until you fully understand its meaning.
Record your paraphrase on a note card or in an electronic format.
Use business language and jargon that your audience is familiar with.
Check your version with the original source to verify that you have not altered the meaning.
Use quotation marks to identify any unique terms or phrases you have borrowed exactly from the source.
Record the source (including the page number) on your note card so that you can give proper credit if you use this material in your report.
In short, good paraphrasing accomplishes three goals: (1) It’s shorter than the original text, (2) it’s presented in your own words, and (3) it does not alter or distort the meaning of the original text.
Business and Professional Writing

20. Business and Professional Writing
Documenting Sources
Quotations
Paraphrased
Material
General
Knowledge
Fair Use
Doctrine
Whenever you quote or paraphrase, you are using someone else’s words or ideas. Doing so without proper credit is plagiarism. You can avoid plagiarism by documenting the original source. Documenting your sources through footnotes, endnotes, or some similar system is necessary for books, articles, tables, charts, diagrams, song lyrics, scripted dialogue, letters, speeches, or any other material that you take from someone else. Even if you paraphrase the material, it’s best to give credit to the person you obtained the original information from.
However, you do not have to cite a source for general knowledge or for specialized knowledge that’s generally known among your readers.
Merely crediting the source is not always enough. According to the fair use doctrine you can use other people’s work only as long as you don’t unfairly prevent them from benefiting as a result.
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21. Business and Professional Writing
Analyzing
the Data
Mean
Median
Mode
Trend
Correlation
One useful way of looking at numerical data is to find the average, which is a number that represents a group of numbers. There are three useful averages. The mean is the sum of all the items in the group divided by the number of items in that group. The median is the “middle of the road” average, or the midpoint of a series (with an equal number of items above and below). The mode is the number that occurs more often than any other in your sample. It’s the best average for answering a question such as “What is the usual amount?”
It’s also helpful to look for a trend, a steady upward or downward movement in a pattern of events taking place over time. Trend analysis is common in business. By looking at data over a period of time, you can detect patterns and relationships that will help you answer important questions.
Once you have identified a trend, you’ll want to look for a cause. To do this, you could look for a correlation, a statistical relationship between two or more variables.
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22. Interpreting Your Findings
Assumptions
Conclusions
Recommendations
Values
Facts
Once you have thoroughly analyzed your information, your next step is to draw conclusions and, if requested, develop recommendations.
A conclusion is a logical interpretation of the facts in your report. Reaching good conclusions based on the evidence at hand is one of the most important skills you can develop in your business career. A sound conclusion must fulfill the original statement of purpose, must be based strictly on the information included in the rest of the report, and must be logical.
Even though conclusions need to be logical, they may not automatically flow from the evidence. Most business decisions require assumptions and judgment; relatively few are based strictly on the facts. Your personal values or the organization's values may also influence your conclusions; just be sure that you’re aware of how these biases affect your judgment.
Whereas a conclusion interprets the facts, a recommendation suggests what to do about the facts. When you develop recommendations, minimize the effects of your assumptions and personal values. To be credible, recommendations must be based on logical analysis and sound conclusions. They must also be practical and acceptable to the people who have to implement them. Finally, be certain to describe the steps that come next.
Judgment
Business and Professional Writing