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Part 5: Reports and Proposals
This three-chapter part starts with a dedicated chapter on finding, processing, and communicating
information in today’s technology-driven environment. The next two chapters focus on reports and
proposals, the major leagues of business communication. These are the tools used to analyze complex
problems, educate audiences, address opportunities in the marketplace, win contracts, and even launch
new companies through compelling business plans. We focus here on the particular challenges of long-
format messages, including some special touches that can make formal reports stand out from the crowd.
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Chapter 13: Finding, Evaluating, and Processing Information
This chapter offers students a cohesive process for finding, evaluating, and processing the information
they will need for many business reports and other writing and presentation projects. If your institution
requires a separate course in research strategies, you might want to cover this chapter in a cursory fashion.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Planning Your Research
Maintaining Ethics and Etiquette in Your Research
Familiarizing Yourself with the Subject
Identifying Information Gaps
Prioritizing Research Needs
Conducting Secondary Research
Evaluating Sources
Locating Sources
Finding Information at the Library
Finding Information Online
Search Tips
Documenting Your Sources
Conducting Primary Research
Gathering Information with Surveys
Gathering Information with Interviews
Processing Data and Information
Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing
Analyzing Numeric Data
Gaining Insights
Guarding Against Mistakes and Misinterpretations
Applying Your Findings
Summarizing Your Research
Drawing Conclusions
Making Recommendations
Managing Information
Learning Catalytics is a “bring your own device” student engagement, assessment, and classroom
intelligence system. It allows instructors to engage students in class with real-time diagnostics. Students
can use any modern, web-enabled device (smartphone, tablet, or laptop) to access it. For more
information on using Learning Catalytics in your course, contact your Pearson Representative.
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LECTURE NOTES
Section 1: Planning Your Research
Learning Objective 1: Describe an effective process for conducting business research.
When there’s a need for research, it’s tempting just to punch some key words into a search engine and
then grab the first few results that show up. However, effective and efficient research requires a more
thoughtful approach. To maximize the chances of finding useful information and to minimize the time
spent looking for it, follow these planning steps:
Before launching any research project, be sure to take a moment or two to consider the ethics and
etiquette of your approach.
Maintaining Ethics and Etiquette in Your Research
Research tactics can affect both the people from whom we gather information and the people who use
our results. To avoid ethical lapses, keep the following points in mind:
• Don’t force a specific outcome by skewing research.
• Respect the privacy of research participants.
Familiarizing Yourself with the Subject
Allow plenty of unstructured time at the beginning of the project to explore the general subject area.
When you have a basic grasp of the subject area, develop a problem statement that defines the
problem or purpose of the research—the decision you need to make or the conclusion you need to
reach at the end of the process.
Identifying Information Gaps
A problem statement frames the purpose of your research, but it often doesn’t tell you what specific
information is needed.
Your next task is to dig deeper to discover the specific information gaps that need to be filled through
research.
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You or someone in your company may already have some of the information you need, and you don’t
want to waste time or money gathering information you already have.
To get useful information, break this topic down into specific issues.
Prioritizing Research Needs
Prioritizing research needs is important because too many unnecessary questions will cost you time
and money.
Class discussion question: What are the risks of immediately jumping online to do research as soon as
you are assigned a report? What steps should you consider before doing any research?
Section 2: Conducting Secondary Research
Learning Objective 2: Define secondary research and explain how to evaluate, locate, and document
information sources.
Evaluating Sources
It is your responsibility to separate quality information from unreliable junk, so you don’t taint your
results or damage your reputation.
Social media have complicated this challenge by making many new sources of information available:
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You cannot assume that the information you find in blogs and other sources is accurate, objective,
and current. Answer the following questions about each source of material:
• 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?
Focus your efforts on the most important or most suspicious pieces of information.
Locating Sources
Within your company, there may be a variety of documents prepared for other projects that offer
helpful information.
Outside the company, there is a wide range of print and online resources. Public corporations often
have more information available than private companies.
Finding Information at the Library
Libraries offer an enormous array of business books, databases, newspapers, periodicals,
directories, almanacs, and government publications.
Some of these printed sources provide information that is not available online, and some of the
online sources provide information that is available by subscription only.
Reference librarians are skilled in research strategies and can often help find obscure information.
They can also direct you to many sources of business information. Also, many library websites
now have a business portal, with links to helpful resources and advice on finding information.
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• Business books. Although less timely than newspapers and periodicals, business books
provide in-depth coverage of a variety of business topics.
• Directories. Many include membership information for all kinds of professions,
industries, and special-interest groups.
Finding Information Online
The Internet can be a tremendous source of business information, provided that you know how to
approach a search, where to look, and how to use the tools available. Roughly speaking, the tools
fall into two categories:
• Search for existing information.
• Monitor selected sources for new information.
The most familiar online search tools are general-purpose search engines, which scan millions of
websites to identify individual webpages that contain a specific word or phrase and then attempt
For all their ease and power, conventional search engines have three primary shortcomings:
• No human editors are involved to evaluate the quality or ranking of the search results.
A variety of tools are available to overcome the three main weaknesses of general-purpose search
engines, and you should consider using one or more of them in your business research.
First, web directories use human editors to categorize and evaluate websites. A variety of other
directories focus on specific media types, such as blogs or podcasts.
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A variety of specialized search engines now exist to reach various parts of the hidden Internet.
Search Tips
Search engines, metasearch engines, and databases offer a variety of ways to find information.
Unfortunately, no two of them work in exactly the same way.
The most basic form of searching is a keyword search, in which the engine or database attempts
to find items that include all the words you enter.
To make the best use of any search engine or database, keep the following points in mind:
• Think before you search. After you have identified what you need to know, spend a few
moments thinking about where that information might be found, how it might be
structured, and what terms various websites might use to describe it.
• Read the instructions. You can usually find a Help or Support page that explains both
basic and advanced functions.
Information-discovery and research-management tools continue to evolve, so keep an eye out for
innovations.
Media curation and social bookmarking sites can be put to great use as research tools.
Class discussion question: When you conduct online research for academic or personal needs, do you
look beyond the first page of two or search results on Google? Have you ever read the Help advice on
Google or your favorite search engine? Do you try other search engines, metasearch engines, online
databases, Twitter searches, or other tools? Do you phrase your search queries in various ways to make
sure you cast your net as widely as possible?
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Documenting Your Sources
Documenting the sources you use in your writing serves three important functions:
• It properly and ethically credits the person who created the original material.
Be sure to take advantage of source documentation tools whenever you can to help ensure that you
accurately track all your sources.
Whatever method you choose, documentation is necessary for anything you take from someone else,
including ideas and information that you’ve re-expressed through paraphrasing or summarizing.
However, you do not have to cite a source for general knowledge or for specialized knowledge that’s
generally known among your readers.
In general, avoid relying to a great extent on someone else’s work. When you can’t avoid it, contact
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The following guidelines will help produce results that are both valid and reliable:
• Provide clear instructions to make sure people can answer every question correctly.
• Avoid leading questions that could bias your survey.
• Avoid ambiguous descriptors such as “often” or “frequently.” Such terms mean different
things to different people.
• Avoid compound questions such as “Do you read books and magazines?” People who read
one but not the other won’t know whether to answer yes or no.
• Make the survey adaptive. With an online survey, you can program the software to branch
automatically based on audience inputs. Not only does this sort of real-time adaptation
deliver better answers, but it reduces frustration for survey respondents as well.
Before conducting a survey, test it on a sample group first to identify questions that might be
confusing or that might generate unexpected answers.
Gathering Information with Interviews
Getting in-depth information straight from an expert or an individual concerned about an issue can be
a great method for collecting primary information.
Interviews can dig deeper than the “hands–off” approach of surveys, and skilled interviewers can also
watch for nonverbal signals that provide additional insights.
Think carefully about the sequence of questions and the subject’s potential answers so you can
arrange questions in an order that helps uncover layers of information.
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If your questions might require research or extensive thought, consider providing the person with a
list of questions at least a day or two before the interview.
Face-to-face interviews provide the opportunity to gauge reactions and observe nonverbal signals.
In addition to individual interviews, business researchers also use a form of group interview known as
the focus group:
Section 4: Processing Data and Information
Learning Objective 4: Describe the major tasks involved in processing research results.
Once all the necessary secondary and primary information has been collected, the next step is to
transform it into the specific content needed.
When there’s a significant amount of information or raw data, you need to process the material before you
can use it. This step can involve:
Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing
Textual information from secondary sources can be used in three ways.
Quoting a source means you reproduce the material exactly as you found it (crediting the source, of
course).
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To paraphrase effectively, follow these tips:
• Read and reread the original passage until you fully understand its meaning.
• Restate the central ideas of the original passage using your own words.
Summarizing presents the main idea of the material in fewer words than the original:
All three approaches require careful attention to ethics:
Analyzing Numeric Data
Research often produces numeric data:
You can use simple arithmetic to extract powerful insights from sets of research data.
Three common and useful measures that can give you different insights into a set of data:
• The mean (often referred to as the average) is the sum of all the items in the group divided by
the number of items in that group.
Next, look at the data to spot trends—definite patterns taking place over time. By examining data
over a period of time, patterns and relationships can be detected that help answer important questions.
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Statistical measures and trends identify what is happening. To help you understand why those things
are happening, look at:
Numbers are easy to manipulate with spreadsheets and other computer tools, so be sure to guard
against computational errors and misinterpretation of results.
Even without advanced skills, you can take these precautions:
• Avoid faulty comparisons. Make sure you compare “apples to apples.”
Section 5: Applying Your Findings
Learning Objective 5: Explain how to summarize research results and present conclusions and
recommendations.
After all the planning, research, and processing, it’s time to apply your findings. This can involve
summarizing results, drawing conclusions based on results, and making recommendations.
Summarizing Your Research
A research summary is an unbiased condensation of the information uncovered in your research.
Summaries should not include opinions, conclusions, or recommendations:
Focusing on the audience doesn’t mean conveying only the information they want to hear:
• A good summary might contain nothing but bad news, if that’s what the research uncovered.
• The audience will appreciate and respect honest, complete, and perceptive information.
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Drawing Conclusions
A conclusion is the logical interpretation of the facts and other information in a report.
Reaching good conclusions based on the evidence at hand is one of the most important skills required
in building a solid business career.
For a conclusion to be sound, it must meet two criteria:
Your personal values or the organization’s values may influence your conclusions; be sure that you’re
aware of how these biases can affect your judgment. If your personal biases affect the conclusion, tell
the audience.
Although conclusions must be logical, they may not automatically flow from the evidence:
Making Recommendations
A conclusion interprets information; a recommendation suggests what to do about the information.
To be credible, recommendations must be based on logical analysis and sound conclusions. They
must also be practical and acceptable to your readers, the people who have to make your
recommendations work.
Managing Information
Individual research projects are important contributions to an organization’s collective knowledge.
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HIGHLIGHT BOX: DIGITAL + SOCIAL + MOBILE: TODAY’S COMMUNICATION
ENVIRONMENT
Research on the Go with Mobile Devices
1. Some ways to use a mobile phone (we’re assuming a full-featured smartphone here) to gather
information during a research visit to a college including taking photos and videos, using the phone’s
2. Possible privacy violations include unauthorized photography or video capture, unauthorized audio
recording, unauthorized document scanning, unauthorized location tracking, and the inadvertent
COMMUNICATION CHALLENGES AT STRATEGYZER
Individual Challenge
The problem statement for this research project should reflect the decision that the research is designed to
support, which in this case is two-part question: Are Fortune 500 executives likely to devote a half day of
their time to attend a mini-course and what topics should the course cover? An effective way to phrase
this problem statement could be: Which Business Model Canvas topics would be most compelling for
Fortune 500 executives, and if we offered these topics in a half-day mini-course would they be likely to
attend?
Team Challenge
Two of these four research tactics (a and d) could yield useful information, and two of them (b and c)
aren’t likely to generate many helpful responses.
a. If you could get through to the executives on the phone and get them to commit to interviews, this
approach could yield useful information. However, this is a big if. Option (d) is likely to be more
effective since it targets a group of users who are motivated to get their companies to adopt
Business Model Canvas methods. Ideally, you would be able to combine the two approaches.
13: Finding, Evaluating, and Processing Information 13–15
c. Like (b), this option isn’t likely to get many responses: the target executives apparently aren’t
interested in Business Model Canvas, so there’s not much change they would be visiting the
Strategyzer website.
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
13.1. The five steps are: (1) plan your research; (2) locate the data and information you need; (3)
13.2. The purpose of information gap analysis is to identify research needs so that limited research time
13.3. Secondary research should be performed first to identify information that has already been found
13.4. The hidden Internet or deep web are so named because conventional search techniques can’t access
them. Web pages can be hidden from search engines for a variety of reasons, including password
13.5. To make a survey adaptive means that when doing an online survey, you can program the
13.6. Paraphrasing, which is restating other writers’ work in your own words, can help you maintain
13.7. The mean is the sum of all items in a group divided by the number of items in that group. The
13.8. A sound conclusion fulfills the original statement of purpose, is based strictly on the data in the
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PRACTICE YOUR SKILLS
13.14. Message for Analysis: Primary Research: Conducting Interviews
Students should notice several problems with this list of questions:
• There are several questions that have little or nothing to do with meeting practices (a, b, f, g, l, m,
and o).
• These questions are randomly interspersed and would disrupt the overall flow of the interview.
Question (c) is a good candidate for revision. Giving it a time frame such as “How many meetings do you
attend every week, on average?” And a good follow–up to add here could be “Are you expected to attend
13.16. Surveys might reveal opinions about and attitudes toward the change in procedure;
13.17. Internal documentation and police records would be the best source for answering this
question.
13.19. In addition to purchasing books, students can use this site to browse a subject area and find books
on a given subject. Students can review the table of contents of many of these books online, read
Copyright © 2018 Bovée and Thill LLC
13.38. To obtain the best information, students will want to develop and carefully revise a list of
questions for the professional to answer, using a balanced mix of open-ended, direct open-ended,
closed, and restatement questions. Students should plan an opening, body, and close for the
interview. Encourage the discussion of how they intend to get the subject to relax and open up.
13.39. First, students should realize that ignoring signs of impatience would be the wrong move. They
could be labeled a time-waster, out of tune with the company’s priorities. Most executives juggle
many tasks during a typical day, and many of them were propelled up the corporate ladder by
13.40. This exercise gives students practice in taking effective notes, which will prove useful later. Look
for clarity, good organization, and key points mentioned in their written summaries. They’ll also
13.41. The quarter mean values are $24,500, $24,200, and $29,000. The mean for all nine months is
ASSISTED GRADING QUESTIONS (ACCESSED ON MYBCOMMLAB)
13.42. Online monitoring tools can help with research because they automate the search for breaking
13.43. The phrase directly from the question, “lifetime financial value of a college education,” is a good
place to start. Straightforward questions such as “Is college worth it?” can also be useful.