BUAD 436 - Marketing Strategy: Home

Regardless of where you are getting your information, you need to be aware of a few simple attributes about whatever information you are using.

When evaluating information, here are five helpful considerations:

Currency: timeliness of the information.

Relevance: importance of the information for your need.

Authority: source of the information.

Accuracy: reliability, truthfulness, correctness.

Purpose: reason that the information exists.

Finding reliable statistical information about a particular locale (city, municipal area, region, etc.) can vary significantly.  The level of data collection regarding population, demographics, etc.  that takes place in the United States on a routine basis is not typical of the rest of the world.

Large well known locations in the world (Chicago, New York, London, Hong Kong, Ontario, Paris, San Diego, etc.) typically will have local municipal mechanisms or offices in place to actually gather or nicely distil from larger national or regional statistical gathering efforts data into locally "actionable" kinds of statistical data.   These kinds of offices or agencies can provide a wealth of statistical data.  Be aware that this kind of statistical data will likely "lag" in time and may not be as current as you would prefer.

Business Source Complete will likely provide you with an excellent start on your literature review (scholarly, trade, popular) if your topic is even remotely "business centric."

Be sure to include the permalink along with the APA formatted citation to the resources that you will be using as part of your research.