ILA 101: Researching a product / Professor Brady (Fall 2007)

Below you will find several different sources to help you locate more information about a particular product. Since you need a variety of sources to complete your paper, try taking a look at them all and then evaluate them to see which is most helpful for your everyday product. You need to decide when you have enough information to move on to the next stage of your research.

Beginning your Research

Once you have decided on an everyday product to research, take a minute to stop and brainstorm for information about the product. For example: What are the stages of development for the product? Who makes it? How? Where is it consumed? What are the products uses? Brainstorming a list of research points will help you identify areas you need to complete during the research process and help you make sure that all dimensions of the product are covered in your essay.

Call numbers

Browsing the shelves is a simple, powerful method for finding materials on your topic. You can quickly evaluate the scope of a book by checking its table of contents, index and bibliography.

Looking for information relating to a particular company or range of products might also be useful to you. For example, if you were researching Gap jeans, you might want to take a look at the textile or apparel industries.

To see a brief outline of the entire Library of Congress classification system, click here. The sections below have been highlighted for you.

HD	Industries. Land Use. Labor.
HD2321-4730.9	Industry.
HD2709-2930.7	Corporations.
HD9720-9975	Manufacturing Industries.
HF	Commerce
HF5001-6182	Business
HF5410-5417.5	Marketing. Distribution of products.
HF5419-5422	Wholesale Trade.
HF5428-5429.6	Retail Trade.

Remember that these call numbers are in effect throughout the Library: whether you are looking for a book to check out, an encyclopedia to leaf through, or a video to watch.

Reference resources in Hewes Library

Take advantage of the dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference materials that are designed to explain a topic from the foundation up. You will find the resources below, among others, in the Reference Collection on the Main Level.

• International Directory of Company Histories   REF HD 2721.I63 1988
• Encyclopedia of American Business  REF HF 1001.E463 2004
• US Market Trends and Forecast  REF HF 5415.1.U8 1999
• Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands  REF HF 5415.3.E527 1994
• Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns   REF HF 5837.E53 2000

Online resources

Listed below are several online databases that you may use to locate biographical information about your artists. Many of these databases specialize in business. Some, like Academic Search Premier, are good general databases that cover a wide variety of topics.

• Academic Search Premier
  EBSCOhost's academic-specific database indexes 8,000+ periodicals in all disciplines. 4,600 titles are full-text or full-image, and 3,500 are peer-reviewed. Coverage: generally since 1980, but back to 1965 for some titles.
• America's Newspapers
  Full-text articles from the electronic editions of over 600 American newspapers, including Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune.
• Business and Industry
  Contains important information about companies, industries, products, and markets. Includes trade magazines, newsletters, general business press and international business dailies. Coverage: since 1994. Updated daily.
• Business Source Elite
  EBSCOhost's business database indexes 3,800+ periodicals in all business- and management-related disciplines. 3,000+ titles are full-text or full-image, 1,000 of which are peer-reviewed. Coverage: back to 1950 for some titles.
• Chicago Tribune 1849-1984
  Provides article images (.PDFs) of nearly every page and article of the Chicago Tribune, from its first issue as the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1849, through 1984.
• EconLit
  Indexes dissertations and articles from more than 620 periodicals. Coverage: since 1969.
• LexisNexis Academic
  Indexes, abstracts and provides some full-text access to 5,600+ news sources both national and international.
• New York Times 1851-2001
  Provides article images (.PDFs) of nearly every page and article of the New York Times, from its first issue as the New York Daily Times in 1851, through 2001: 3.4 million pages in all.

Using the WWW

There is no shortage of websites out there about your products. Companies, marketing agencies, and advertisers are all available to you. As with any topic, you need to evaluate the information that you find on these websites. For some assistance in this endeavor, check out our website evaluation guidelines.

When evaluating a website's reliability, the big question is, "Who made this website? Who is responsible?" The answer to this question tells you a lot about the information you will find there. Be wary of opinions, points of view, and biases in the material available.

Human resources: your local librarians

Hopefully, the ideas and resources above will help you to get started in your research. If you have any questions or need assistance, feel free to contact a librarian at the Reference Desk, (309) 457-2301.