BCOM Guide: Home
Business Communication
Why use this Library Guide
Though there is a variety of web content to assist you with your assignment (see below for the assignment), the Library provides many authoritative resources, both electronic format and in print. Click on any of the links to the left (above profile) for specific resources to search. If you have any questions, see the contact information in the profile to the left.
Assignment Help
- Understanding and Researching a Report TopicThis short handout will take you through the steps of identifying where to search and what terms to use.
- How to search databases (11:10 min video)This video will show you techniques for picking a database to search and how to use the search terms you identified using the Understanding and Research a Report Topic handout.
- ZoteroBibZoteroBib helps you build a bibliography instantly from any computer or device, without creating an account or installing any software. It’s brought to you by the team behind Zotero, the powerful open-source research tool recommended by thousands of universities worldwide, so you can trust it to help you seamlessly add sources and produce perfect bibliographies. If you need to reuse sources across multiple projects or build a shared research library, we recommend using Zotero instead.
Evaluating Information Using SIFT
When you need to evaluate something you find online, whether it is a news story, social media post, news story, blog, or something else, just remember: SIFT.
Stop
- When you first hit a page or post--STOP.
- Ask yourself: Do you know the person who posted/shared? Do you recognize the site where the information is being found?
- What is reputation of that person and/or site?
Investigate the source
- You should know who has written/posted/shared/researched that information before you even engage with it. If you’re reading research by a Nobel prize-winning scientist, you’ll want to know that. If you’re watching a video about the benefits of eating pasta that was made by Barilla pasta company, you should know that too!
- Ask yourself: What is the source and what is their agenda?
Find trusted coverage
- More important than where information is posted is verifying how true it is or not.
- Go to a news source or website that you know and trust, or that has a good reputation, and look for more information about your topic.
- Ask yourself: Is there a consensus? Is there more in-depth coverage somewhere else? What is the history of the claim/issue? What is the context?
Trace media and quotes back to their original context
- Often, things we see on the internet have been stripped from their original context: a cropped photo, a snipped video, a small piece of a larger quote.
- Trace the claim, quote, media, etc., back to the original context to get an idea of whether it is being accurately presented.
- Use Twitter, Google Images, Youtube, and others to track original pieces of media to compare to what you found.
This content is derived from SIFT: The Four Moves by Mike Caulfield and is licensed under CC-BY 4.0
