• Business Source Complete : Our main source for articles in business journals and magazines.
• Canadian Newsstream : Fulltext articles from many Canadian newspapers. A great starting point for your research regardless of the topic.
• Factiva : More business and general news from around the world, including many business news sources
• Statista : Statistics on topics relevant to business, media, public policy, health and a wide variety of other subjects.
• CBCA Fulltext Business : The first place to try for articles in Canadian business magazines.
• SFU Library Catalogue : Don't forget books! The depth and breadth of a book (or ebook) often beats what you can find in a short article or web site.
• Academic Search Complete : Covers many academic journals in all subject areas, as well as thousands of popular magazines. Most ASC publications aren't business-focused, but they are often still useful: facts relevant to business decisions can be found in all sorts of magazines and reports.
• Google : Yes, Google is a database too. The majority of the free information that you'll get via Google isn't in journals or magazines, so don't forget to evaluate your Google results with extra diligence. You should still search in the subscription databases provided to you by the SFU Library (the ones above) to get articles from journals, etc., especially the many publications that are not available free online. With that in mind, a well-planned Google search could still unearth useful information from sources such as governments and associations.
• Google Scholar : The ability to find and search within "cited by" articles in Google Scholar is particularly valuable for BUS 360W research. See my tip on "cycling" a search in this guide for an example.

If you find a news article that's even somewhat close to your topic, look for any mentions of relevant experts, studies, or organizations and search the internet to see if those clues lead to additional information.

For example, this G&M news article about Canadians buying more local food led me to research published by Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, an organisation whose research on food consumption in Canada has often been mentioned in the news. 

Similarly, this 2023 article on hiring younger workers led me to research conducted by Prof. Karl Moore of McGill, and this 2025 news article on a similar topic led me to this Statistics Canada report, these study results from a research institute at UWaterloo, and these insights from a Canadian HR firm. And this 2023 Forbes article mentions this 2022 Deloitte survey, which prompted me to search for the 2024 iteration of the same survey.

Essentially, this search technique makes use of the work that others (journalists) have done in gathering information for you. The sources mentioned in news articles won't be comprehensive or perfectly reliable and recent, but the time saved from repeated keyword searches can be spent evaluating each fact and opinion!

If your research leads to some academic research published in scholarly journals, books, or dissertations, try using Google Scholar to see if those initial studies have been cited by any newer research publications.

For instance, this 2015 article — "Generational differences in workplace expectations" — has been cited more than 100 times since it was published. Many of those post-2015 citing articles will be on similar topics, and they're only a quick search away. Just enter an article title in Google Scholar and look for a "Cited by" link below the citation. 

Another example: this 2013 research article on lowering the voting age to increase interest in politics among young people has been cited at least 120 times since it was published. That's 120+ post-2013 research sources that are significantly more likely to be on related topics than 120 random keyword search results! 

• Ipsos - Global/Canada/USA
• Angus Reid Institute
• Environics
• ResearchCo.
• Abacus Data
• Public Opinion Research Reports - the Canadian government often commissions polls and focus groups on topics ranging from access issues for disabled employees to perceptions of organised crime or opinions about the role of Canada Post.
• The Harris Poll - Reports, News & Events, Briefs
• Pew Research Center

• One of the best recognized journal ranking sources are the Journal Citation Reports (JCRs) via the SFU Library. These reports include "impact factors" for many academic journals — an attempt to objectively and quantitatively measure the relative impact of articles by doing calculations based on how often articles in those journals are being cited by other journals. 
  Tip: Try searching for the category "Management" to browse a ranked list of the 400+ best-known journals in that subject. 
  Note: The JCRs are focused on the longest-standing journals in many areas, which means that they omit quite a few newer business journals. That doesn't mean those journals aren't important in their specific sub-disciplines. Try the other sources in this section if you don't find what you need in the JCRs.
   
• Our Scopus database also provides journal rankings based on quantitative data. 
  Tip: Log in to Scopus, select Sources at the top of the screen, then select from the sub-topics in the Business, Management, and Accounting subject area.
   
• A more business-focused place to start is Prof. Anne-Wil Harzing's Journal Quality List which aggregates rankings of business & economics journals from many different sources. 
  Tip: Be sure to read the descriptions of the various ranking systems Harzing is quoting from. Look for key journals that appear high on multiple lists for your discipline.
   
• The [UK] Chartered Association of Business Schools' Academic Journal Guide is another good place to check for the ranking of key journals, but note that you need to register to download their guide. 

If you were doing primary research (a survey, questionnaire, etc.), you could design your study so that you were measuring exactly what you wanted, when and where you wanted. Theoretically, you could then get perfectly Reliable, Relevant, and Recent information. (In practice, of course, no study is perfect, so you'd still have to evaluate your results carefully!) 

However, due to limitations of money, time, and expertise, primary research isn't always feasible. Moreover, in some cases the information really can't be found using primary research. Secondary research — looking for information researched and published by others and deciding if (and how much) it applies to your situation — is often the main way that evidence for business decisions is gathered. 

Secondary research is automatically imperfect: you are trying to use information collected by others for their own reasons, and you need to make big decisions based on that information. Therefore, you need to evaluate that information very closely... especially since millions of dollars (sales, costs, liabilities, etc.) are likely involved in your decision or recommendation.

Research and evaluation of the information you gather doesn't happen in a vacuum. You need to think about your audience: 

• Who will be reading the report? You probably have a main/initial audience, but will they be passing the information on to others? Or will they at least be using the arguments you prepare to try to convince others to take specific actions? Both groups are part of the audience for your recommendations and the evidence that support them.
• What does your (entire!) audience likely know about this topic already? What do they believe or expect? Can you make any assumptions?
• How does your audience feel about the topic? Are they stressed? Biased? Is this a major decision involving large amounts of money and/or risk? Will that affect the information you provide and how you discuss it with them? Will you, perhaps, spend more time justifying the quality of the information you're citing if the person is stressed?

Don't forget that you are primarily evaluating individual facts and opinions that you are considering using in your arguments, not solely the articles, magazines, or web sites in which you found them. (I.e., not the containers that held those facts and opinions.) 

For example, a recently updated Government of Canada webpage might be quoting old environmental information by an outside research firm that has strong ties to the oil industry. The age and authority of the government webpage aren't the main focus of your evaluation — you would be looking at the expertise and experience of the organisation or person whose research originally produced the statistics, as well as the age and method of their study, etc. 

(Although it certainly would be interesting to find out why the government was quoting a potentially biased and old report when better info should be available! Think about purpose mentioned in the Reliability section below.)

• Was it produced by a person or organization that you think has the expertise and experience to do this sort of research? (authority) 
   
• Why was it gathered and published? (purpose) 
  
  Is there a bias, and does the bias make the information unusable or at least likely to be an incomplete picture of the situation? Be careful on this one! Bias is common — in many cases the only people who will publish information on a topic are those who have some sort of an interest in the topic. That doesn't mean the information is incorrect. Don't throw it out too soon. Instead, look for corroborating evidence elsewhere, as well as for conflicting evidence.
  
  Is the container (the article, web site, book, etc.) meant to entertain or persuade you, or was it intended to educate you? When you see that the author is trying to persuade or entertain you, expect that facts may have been pulled out of context and that facts from other perspectives have been left out to create a more coherent and compelling story. That doesn't mean that the facts in the article are necessarily false, just that you probably only have a small part of the whole story. 
   
• How was the information gathered? (documentation) For example, do you have the details on the sample size and nature, where the study was conducted, etc.? If the information was merely quoted in your initial source but came from elsewhere, can you track down the original report to get as many of these details as possible? 
  
  Two common problems with documentation are: 
  
  (1) you can't find very much methodology, so you need to decide if you can still judge the information, and if so, how you would justify including it for your manager; and 
  (2) you find methodology details, but the study seems to be measuring things differently than you would have for your specific problem (different geography, industry, company size, question, etc.), in which case you are moving into judging (and justifying to your audience) the relevance of the information...

No matter how high quality the information is, you need to make sure it is relevant to the problems you are trying to solve and the decisions you are trying to make. For instance, if the information you've found is based on another industry in another country, then you have to decide if that really matters. Can you still use it as the basis for a decision? 

These are three of the most common areas in which the facts you found may not perfectly match your needs: 

• Geography: Does the info you found apply to your geographic area? Does it apply to an area that is close enough to yours? Does it apply broadly to many areas, yet is still accurate for your area?
• Industry: Does the info (fact/claim) apply to just one industry? Does it match the industry you are working with in the case? Is it close enough? Or perhaps it seems to apply to all industries, in which case you may want to think about how similar your industry is to all others for the specific topic you are researching.
• Scale: Does the information you found apply only to large organisations? Or maybe only to small businesses? Do you believe it can apply to the scale of the organisation you are working with in your case study? 

In addition, even if you do think it's relevant information, you need to figure out how to get your audience to understand the same thing. That is, once you've judged relevance, you still need to do some business communicating to make sure your audience doesn't have the same doubts you did when you first looked at the info.

• Is there a chance the fact or expert opinion you found is outdated? That is, could newer findings have superseded the information you found?
• Or has the environment (technology, laws, human behaviour, societal priorities...) changed since the information was first gathered?
• What will your manager/audience think of the age of the information if you don't explain it to her? 

Again, if you did the primary research yourself, you'd probably have the most recent (and relevant) information possible, but instead you are relying on secondary research. There is no magic date beyond which all the information is good or bad. It depends on the specific topic, the context of your case, the needs of your audience, etc. 

For example, imagine you found information from a study completed 10 years ago about the communication preferences of younger consumers. Do you think that information might have been superseded since the study was conducted and published? If you believe it is still accurate enough to use in your recommendations, do you think your manager might have concerns? Can you justify/explain including the information in your report if it was the best you could find? 

One tricky bit to watch out for with recency: There are often several dates attached to a fact, so you have to pick the right one when you are deciding how recent the information is. 

For example, imagine that someone conducted a study in 2015 (gathered & analyzed data = primary research), wrote up the results in early 2016, tried to get it published for a year or two, then finally got it peer reviewed, accepted, and published in a journal in 2018. Then a journalist read the study and quoted from it in 2022. The date that you want to pay attention to if you want to use the study results as evidence for a recommendation is 2015 — that's when the information was initially gathered/created.