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Marketing

Finding Peer-Reviewed Sources in Databases

Peer reviewed sources (also known as scholarly sources) are:

  • written by experts in the field
  • reviewed by other experts in the field (hence the peer-reviewed)
  • intended for an academic audience

While you can find scholarly articles through general search engines, databases contain a feature where you can narrow your results to only scholarly articles.

Marketing Databases

Statistics Sources

Forming your Search String

The more complicated your question, the less likely a search engine can understand it. To get the best result, identify keywords and like terms to create a search string.

Example research question: How do scandals impact brand perception in American non-profit companies?

Keywords: scandals, brand perception, American non-profit companies

Like terms can include synonyms and also examples of your keywords. If you don't get results from searching your keywords, it doesn't mean that the research doesn't exist. It could mean that the researcher used different language to describe the same topic

  • scandals: fraud, misconduct, wrongdoing, 
  • brand perception: brand equity, brand attitude
  • American non-profit companies: US non-profits, North American not-for-profit, nonprofit

Search strings connect your keywords and like terms together for the best results.

Too many results? Use AND to narrow results

scandals AND brand perception AND American non-profit companies

Too few results? Use OR to broaden results

scandals OR misconduct AND brand perception OR brand equity AND American non-profit companies OR US nonprofit OR North American not-for-profit