11. Finding, Evaluating, and Processing Information

Question 1

What are the 3 planning steps for conducting business research?

Answer 1

1. familiarize yourself with the subject
2. identify the most critical gaps in your information
3. prioritise your research needs

Question 2

Familiarize yourself with the subject…

Answer 2

• beginning have unstructured time to explore

- develop a problem statement that defines the problem or purpose of the research

Question 3

identifying information gaps

Answer 3

break this topic down into specific issues

Question 4

prioritising research needs

Answer 4

important because too many unnecessary questions will cost time and money
- prioritize by dividing questions into “need to know” and “nice to know”

Question 5

Secondary research

Answer 5

consulting research that was done previously for another purpose

Question 6

Primary research

Answer 6

new research done specifically for the current project

Question 7

3 shortcomings with conventional search engines

Answer 7

1. no human editors
2. various engines use different techniques, so often find different material
3. can’t reach all content on some websites

Question 8

name 3 tools used to overcome the weaknesses of general purpose search engines

Answer 8

1. human powered search engines
2. metacrawlers or metasearch engines
3. online databases

Question 9

metasearch engines

Answer 9

search engine that searches other search engines

Question 10

two most common primary research methods

Answer 10

surveys and interviews

Question 11

survey

Answer 11

is reliable if it produces identical results when repeated and is valid if it measures what it’s intended to measure

Question 12

questions to ask during interview

Answer 12

1. open-ended questions to get opinions, insights, and information
2. closed questions to get a specific answer (such as yes or no)

Question 13

Steps in processing search results

Answer 13

1. quoting, paraphrasing, or summarising textual material
2. analyzing numeric data
3. drawing conclusions
4. making recommendations

Question 14

paraphrasing

Answer 14

paraphrasing information is restating it in your own words and with your own sentence structures

Question 15

summarizing

Answer 15

summarizing is similar to paraphrasing but presents the main idea of the material in fewer words than the original

Question 16

statistical measures and trends

Answer 16

identify what is happening

Question 17

causation and correlation

Answer 17

why certain things are happening

Question 18

causation

Answer 18

the cause-effect linkage between two factors, where one of them causes the other to happen

Question 19

correlation

Answer 19

the connection between 2 or more things

Question 20

what should summaries not include?

Answer 20

opinions, conclusions, and recommendations

Question 21

conclusion needs to meet two criteria

Answer 21

1. must be based strictly on the information in the report
2. must be logical
   (interprets information)