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General

Recommended Starting Databases: Business and Commerce

  • ABI/Inform Global ?

    Description: ABI/INFORM Global™ is one of the most comprehensive business databases on the market, offering the latest business and financial information for researchers at all levels. It includes in-depth coverage from thousands of publications, most of them in full-text. With ABI/INFORM Global, users can find out about business conditions, management techniques, business trends, management practice and theory, corporate strategy and tactics, and competitive landscape. ABI/INFORM Global includes ABI/INFORM Archive, which offers a deep backfile of many of the most important business journals of the last century.

  • ABI/Inform Trade & Industry ?

    Description: With thousands of titles, most of them in full text, ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry™ provides business professionals with critical information about companies, products, and executives as well as in-depth news and analysis of industry trends and developments. With ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry, users can study and compare specific industries such as food & drink, pharmacy, telecommunications, computing, transportation, construction, and petrochemicals.

  • Nexis Uni ?

    Description: Nexis Uni is a rich source of news, business and legal information.

  • Canadian Business & Current Affairs™ (CBCA) Complete ?

    Description: More than 4.5 million records from 1,730 titles covering current events, business, education, science, the arts, and academic information as produced in Canada. The database also includes a few Canadian legal journals that are in neither Hein Online nor Lexis-Nexis, also full-text.

  • CPA Canada Handbook

Faculty Consultant

This research guide has been prepared in consultation with Dr Maurice Grzeda of the Commerce program.

Connect from Off Campus

Most of the Library's online resources are available to you from anywhere off campus.  See:  Proxy Server Accounts

Library Instruction

To learn more about the library and its resources and how you can exploit them to your advantage, register in the Research Skills Tutorial on D2L. There are several sections in the tutorial with a short quiz at the end of each; at the end you will receive a Certificate of Completion. Many professors require you to take this tutorial--and once you finish it, you can save your certificate to reprint as often as necessary.

We can hold special classes at the request of at least 5 students. If you would like to arrange a special class, or you think your course would benefit from some in-class library instruction, please ask your professor to contact the librarian responsible for your faculty to set up some sessions.

Programs in the Faculty

For information about Laurentian's Management programs, please visit the programs' websites.  These incude the undergraduate Business Administration program, the undergraduate on-line program, and the MBA program.

More Help

In the library: The Library User Assistance Desk to your immediate left as you enter the library is a good place to start.

By email: Email the librarian responsible for your faculty for a reply during regular working hours.

Research consultations: Book a research consultation with the librarian responsible for your faculty by Zoom or phone.

By chat: With our "Ask the Library" service. For more information, see About Ask a Librarian.

For Distance Education students: Telephone: 1-800-661-1058, ext. 2 or email: bibdesmaraislib@laurentian.ca

Get Started

Quick Tips on Preparing for Research

Before you start:

  • understand the key terms you may be using as well as the general area that interests you;
  • think about ways to narrow your topic, making it as specific as possible (unless you have been given a specific topic to research!);
  • create a thesis statement;
  • list the main concepts (key words) included in your thesis statement (research question), then based on your readings;
  • find as many synonyms as you can for each main concept. You are now ready to start searching in the library's catalogue and databases.

When you are looking for definitions or if you don’t know much about a specific subject, reference works such as dictionaries and encyclopedias become invaluable because they contain relatively short—and understandable—articles. These articles often lay out the parameters of a subject and can assist you in trying to narrow your topic. Often such articles are accompanied by lists of readings (bibliographies) which allow you to explore your topic further.  As a start you might look at:

The Encyclopedia of ManagementIncludes essays on 350 topics in management theories and applications, written by academics and business professionals who have first hand knowledge of the particular topic or essay they are contributing, and reviewed and edited by Dr. Marilyn M. Helms. Topics include aggregate planning, benchmarking, logistics, diversification strategy, non-traditional work arrangements, performance measurement, productivity measures, and supply chain management, among many others.

 

 

Get Books and Theses

Why Use Books?

  • Books are extremely valuable resources when doing in-depth research on a topic! Authors have hundreds of pages to give detailed explanations and background information surrounding the various facets of your research interest.
  • Using this kind of in-depth information will make it easier to form a research question or thesis statement (or even spark your inspiration)
  • The bibliographies found in books are extensive, and will point you to other resources to add to your own resource list.
  • Remember: scholars write journal articles under the assumption that you already have a relatively thorough understanding of the topic – this means that you will likely not find the foundational information needed for your topic in the beginning stages of your research process. In this sense, books become indispensable

Searching the Catalogue

The catalogue is your primary tool for finding books in the J.N. Desmarais Library. You can also use the catalogue to find other materials, including government publications and journals (including individual articles).

You can search the catalogue by:

  • Title
  • Author/Creator
  • Subject
  • Call Number

When you know the book you are searching for, pick Title or Author; when you are searching for a topic, start with Keyword unless you know the exact Subject heading describing your topic.

More on searching the Catalogue is available in Module 5 of the Research Skills Tutorial in D2L.

E-Books

E-books are located in two different places:

  • Some may be located by using the library’s catalogue and selecting "Books & eBooks" as the "Material Type" and then further filtering your results by "Available online". 
  • E-books can also be located by searching in e-book collections.Searching in these collections is the same as searching in a database.

Recommended E-Book Collections

WorldCat

With nearly 200 million records representing titles held by nearly 75,000 libraries you will find almost any book ever published in the English language in WorldCat.
 
 

Theses

In addition to books, you may wish to search for book-length Master's theses or Ph.D dissertations.

Best bet:  Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest).

If you are also looking for recent theses or dissertations produced by Laurentian graduates, check out our Research Repository - LUZONE.  Note that since 2013, before graduation all Masters and Doctoral candidates MUST deposit their theses or dissertations in this repository.

Get Articles

Articles: Quick Tips

The databases to the right provide references to many scholarly journal articles and papers.

  1. Start off with keyword searches expressing your topic. Keyword searching crosses all fields.
  2. Use Search Operators such as "OR" and "AND" to expand or reduce your results.
  3. Review those items that look relevant, then, exploit the details within those entries to help lead you to other relevant articles.
    • Pay attention to the subject headings (often called "descriptors") to see how the database describes your topic and use them to find related articles.
    • Find other papers written by the same author; these will typically be on similar subjects.
    • Follow citation trails: other articles that have cited this article will probably be on a related subject and will include citations to other articles of interest.
  4. For more Secrets of Searching a Database, review that section in How to Research Like a Librarian.

Getting Articles @ Laurentian

In any database, when you see an article that interests you, click on it and, unless the article is available within the database itself, within the record you will see an image that says "Get it @ Laurentian":

Get it at Laurentian

When you click on that,  you will arrive at a menu which will lead to an electronic copy of the article you want, or, if not available electronically, to Laurentian's catalogue which will allow you to check if the article is available in print in the library, and if not, to a final link which allows you to order the item through Interlibrary loan.

Peer Review

Peer Review is the evaluation of creative work by scholars in the same field in order to maintain or enhance the quality of the work in that field.

In the case of peer reviewed journals, which are usually academic, peer review generally refers to the evaluation of the articles in them prior to publication. For more, check out this definition of peer review.

  • To ascertain whether a journal is peer reviewed, consult Ulrichsweb.

Recommended Starting Database

  • ABI/Inform Global ?

    Description: ABI/INFORM Global™ is one of the most comprehensive business databases on the market, offering the latest business and financial information for researchers at all levels. It includes in-depth coverage from thousands of publications, most of them in full-text. With ABI/INFORM Global, users can find out about business conditions, management techniques, business trends, management practice and theory, corporate strategy and tactics, and competitive landscape. ABI/INFORM Global includes ABI/INFORM Archive, which offers a deep backfile of many of the most important business journals of the last century.

  • ABI/Inform Trade & Industry ?

    Description: With thousands of titles, most of them in full text, ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry™ provides business professionals with critical information about companies, products, and executives as well as in-depth news and analysis of industry trends and developments. With ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry, users can study and compare specific industries such as food & drink, pharmacy, telecommunications, computing, transportation, construction, and petrochemicals.

  • Nexis Uni ?

    Description: Nexis Uni is a rich source of news, business and legal information.

  • Canadian Business & Current Affairs™ (CBCA) Complete ?

    Description: More than 4.5 million records from 1,730 titles covering current events, business, education, science, the arts, and academic information as produced in Canada. The database also includes a few Canadian legal journals that are in neither Hein Online nor Lexis-Nexis, also full-text.

  • CPA Canada Handbook

Some Related Databases

  • Academic OneFile ?

    Description: More than 14,000 titles, including more than 9,000 peer-reviewed journals and more than 6,000 in full text. Extensive coverage of the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature and other subjects since 1980.

  • Canadian Business & Current Affairs™ (CBCA) Complete ?

    Description: More than 4.5 million records from 1,730 titles covering current events, business, education, science, the arts, and academic information as produced in Canada. The database also includes a few Canadian legal journals that are in neither Hein Online nor Lexis-Nexis, also full-text.

  • EconLit ?

    Description: Indexes full-text articles in all fields of economics including capital markets, country studies, econometrics, economic forecasting, environmental economics, government regulations, labor economics, monetary theory, and urban economics. Produced by the American Economics Association since 1969.

  • Nexis Uni ?

    Description: Nexis Uni is a rich source of news, business and legal information.

  • Regional Business News ?

    Description: This robust resource provides ultimate coverage for full-text business publications, on a regional level, for the United States and Canadian provinces. Key resources include newspapers, radio & TV news transcripts, trade publications, magazines and newswires, with full-text content coverage spanning over 22 years.

Citation Sources

When researching a paper, it is useful to consult the citations used by the author of an article that you find relevant.  But that article itself may have been cited by other authors after it was first written. Two sources help you identify such citations:

Get Films

Online Film Collections

  • NFB (National Film Board) ?

    Description: The NFB's online Screening Room features over 3,000 films, excerpts, trailers and interactive works (including) documentaries, animation, experimental films and fiction (with a Canadian context or perspective.) Faculty can activate additional CAMPUS tools on their personal NFB account to create playlists of film snippets ("chapters") and entire films for classes; contact Alain Lamothe (alamothe@laurentian.ca) for details.

Need a Film Not in Laurentian's Online Film Collections?

​Consult: Watmedia (Provincial Multi-media Catalogue).  Material held by Laurentian may be signed out in the library. To order a film not available at Laurentian, please email LUFilmLibrary@laurentian.ca and specify the date(s) you require the item.

Questions:  Please contact Ginette Gervais, coordinator of interlibrary loan.

Citing Sources and Zotero

Why Cite?

We cite sources to acknowledge the work of others, as well as to avoid academic dishonesty or plagiarism.

The University of Toronto has made available a comprehensive set of guidelines on How NOT to Plagiarize which every student should read.

Citation Styles in Laurentian's Commerce Programme

At Laurentian, professors will specify the citation style to be used.  In Commerce, it is normally APA.

The library has prepared a guide to the various citation styles available.

Managing citations with Zotero

Zotero is a free, web-based citation manager that allows you to: 

  • Directly import references from article databases, the library catalogue, e-book collections, etc.
  • Manage and organize your references.
  • Create a bibliography.
  • Share your references with others
  • Add in-text citation and a bibliography directly into your assignment 

To enable Zotero's Library Lookup service to find full-text documents licensed by Laurentian University, set Edit->Preferences->Advanced->General->Resolver to https://omni.laurentian.ca/openurl/01OCUL_LU/01OCUL_LU:OMNI

Getting started with Zotero: