Business Communication: Chapter 11 Finding, Evaluating, and Processing Informatin

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1. Describe an effective process for conducting business research

· Researching without a plan wastes time and usually produces unsatisfactory results.

· The research process: plan-locate data and information-process data and information-apply your findings-manage information.

· Take precautions to avoid ethical lapses in your research

· Privacy is one the hottest issues in the research field today

· Don’t automatically assume that you can use all the ideas and information you find online.

· Avoid false starts and blin alleys by familiarizing yourself with new subject areas before you start your research

· The problem statement defines the purpose of your research and guides your investigation.

· Focus your research by identifying the most important gaps in your information.

· You usually won’t have enough time or money to answer every question that comes to mind, so setting priorities is a must.

2. Define primary research and secondary research and explain when you use each method

Primary research is research that is being conducted for the first time, whereas secondary research involves information that was originally gathered for another research project or another effort. Secondary research is generally used first, oth to save time in case someone else has already gathered the information needed and to offer additional insights into your research questions.

3. Name ten criteria for evaluating the credibility of an information source

· Does the source have a reputation for honesty and reliability?

· Is the source potentially biased?

· What is the purpose of the material?

· Is the author credible?

· Where did the source get its information?

· Can you verify the material independently?

· Is the material current?

· Is the material complete?

· Are all claims supported with evidence?

· Do the source’s claims stand up to logical scrutiny?

· Start your research by conducting secondary research first

· Libraries offer information and resources you can’t find anywhere else—including specialized research librarians.

4. Provide five guidelines for conducting an effective online search

· Take advantage of the latest research technologies, including desktop and enterprise search engines, research and content managers, social bookmarking sites, and newsfeeds.

· To track a subject over time, sign up for newsfeeds from periodicals, blogs, and other sources that cover the subject.

· Proper documentation of the sources you use is an ethical responsibility- and an important resource for your readers.

· Copyright protections may prevent you from using some materials without obtaining permission from the copyright holder.

5. Outline the steps required to create and administer surveys and interviews

· For a survey to produce valid results, it must be based on a representative sample of the population of interest.

· Provide clear instructions in questionnaires to prevent mistaken answers.

· Be sure to test your survey before using it

· Online surveys are quick and inexpensive, but they require the same care in planning and analysis as offline surveys.

· Interviews are easy to conduct but require careful planning to produce useful results.

· Choose question types that will generate the specific types of information you need.

· Face-to-face interviews give you the opportunity to gauge nonverbal responses.

6. Describe the major tasks involved in processing and applying your research results.

· After you collect your research, the next step is to convert it into usable information.

· Quoting a source means reproducing the content exactly and indicting who created the information originally.

· Paraphrasing is expressing someone else’s ideas in your own words.

· Summarizing is similar to paraphrasing but distills the content into fewer words.

· Mean, median, and mode provide insight into sets of data.

· Trends identify patterns that tend to repeat over time.

· Causation shows cause-and-effect relationships; correlation indicates simultaneous changes in two variables that may not necessarily be causally related.

· Watch out for errors that might have crept in during collection and processing of data.

· A summary is an unbiased presentation of information regarding a particular topic, without attempts to draw conclusions or make recommendations.

· A conclusion is a logical interpretation of research results.

· A recommendation is a suggested course of action.

· Knowledge management systems help organizations share research results and other valuable information and insights.

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