Research Steps

How Do We Research a Topic?

Step One—Analyze the Task Assigned.

Different assignments ask for different things. The IDS 390 Company report, for example, asks you to gather material generated by the company AND material produced by sources external to the company. You are directed to create as full a picture of the company as possible so your boss can determine if this company would be a good prospective audit client.

Step Two—Find Basic Information First.

To create this company snapshot, you will need internal information that the company regularly provides to outsiders, such as the annual report, SEC filings found electronically on EDGAR, and press releases sent to newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and trade magazine publications (examples: Chemicals and Insurance).

You may wish to find general information on the company and its industry in sources listed as Basic Company Information and Public Company Information (Perkins lists). Guides to the Literature (Perkins) will help you find business information sources that are relevant to your company and industry. It should be comparatively easy for you to find material on a public company such as the one you have been assigned.

Step Three—Widen Your Search to More Distant Sources on the Company.

Once you have a feel for your company (A few questions you need to be able to answer: How well or poorly does the annual report tell you the company is doing? What areas appear to create risk for the company? What new areas is the company pursuing, if any? How does the company appear to rank in its industry?), begin the real digging to find out what people outside the company think about it. How do the experts rank the competitors in the industry? Look for business press overviews of the industry (Forbes, Business Week, Fortune), trade magazines (Chemical Week, etc.), and articles.

BE CAREFUL when looking for articles on the company (ABIInform, Wilson Business Abstracts, Lexis/Nexis) to differentiate between press releases (company-generated information slightly rewritten and printed in newspapers, general business magazines, and trade magazines) and actual articles researched and written by industry experts or at least business journalists.

Step Four—Analyze Your Gathered Material.

Make a list of issues and risks facing your company in the next year.
List areas you need more information on and figure out how to get that information.
Plan the outline of your descriptive section of the report.
Figure out the ratios for the company for your report’s analytical section.
Plan graphics that illustrate your conclusions.

Step Five—Write Your Company Description.

For your intended audience, write up your company findings so the reader gets as full a picture as possible of the company, its industry and its position in it, its competition, its products, its risks, its future and its likelihood of being a good prospective audit client.

Librarian Michael Perkins’ website is at http://libweb.sdsu.edu/~mperkins/Perkins.html