How can you determine the best structure for writing a proposal? AND Explain how to choose an organizational strategy when writing a proposal.

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Business Communication Today

Fourteenth Edition

Chapter 13

Finding, Evaluating, and Processing Information

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Learning Objectives

13.1 Describe an effective process for conducting business research.

13.2 Define secondary research, and explain how to evaluate, locate, and document information sources.

13.3 Define primary research, and outline the steps involved in conducting surveys and interviews.

13.4 Describe the major tasks involved in processing research results.

13.5 Explain how to summarize research results and present conclusions and recommendations.

Planning Your Research

LO 13.1 Describe an effective process for conducting business research.

With so much information now online, it’s tempting just to punch some keywords into a search engine and grab the first few results that show up. However, effective and efficient research requires a more thoughtful approach. Your favorite search engine might not be able to reach the webpages that have the information you need, the information might not be online at all, it might be online but not under the search terms you’ve used, or it might not even exist in any form.

The Research Process

Figure Caption: By following a methodical research process, you can save time and money while uncovering better information.

To maximize your chances of finding useful information and to minimize the time you spend looking for it, follow these planning steps: Familiarize yourself with the subject so that you can frame insightful questions, identify the most critical gaps in your information, and then prioritize your research needs. However, 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

Don’t Force a Specific Outcome

Respect the Privacy of Research Participants

Document Sources and Give Credit

Respect Intellectual Property Rights

Don’t Misquote Your Sources

Don’t Make Misrepresentations

Your research tactics affect the people you gather data and information from and the people who read and apply your results. To avoid ethical lapses, keep the following points in mind:

●● Don’t force a specific outcome by skewing your research. Approach your research with an open mind and a willingness to accept whatever you find, even if it’s not what you expect or want to see.

●● Respect the privacy of your research participants. Privacy is a contentious issue today. Businesses believe they have a right to protect their confidential information from competitors, and consumers believe they have a right to protect their personal information from businesses.

●● Document sources and give appropriate credit. Whether you are using published documents, personal interviews, or company records, citing your sources not only is fair to the people who created and provided the information but also helps your audience members confirm your information or explore it in more detail, if they so choose.

●● Respect the intellectual property and digital rights of your sources. For example, your research might turn up a great new way to sell services online, but that doesn’t mean you’re free to implement that process. It might be protected by one of the many patents that have been granted in recent years for business process models.

●● Don’t extract more from your sources than they actually provide. In other words, don’t succumb to the temptation to put words in a source’s mouth. For instance, if an industry expert says that a sales increase is possible, don’t quote him or her as saying that a sales increase is probable.

●● Don’t misrepresent who you are or what you intend to do with the research results. One classic example of ethical lapses in this area is known as sugging, short for selling under the guise of research. For example, a firm might seem to be conducting a survey when it is, in fact, using the questions to identify hot sales leads. Another unethical variation on sugging is following up a real survey with sales calls, using information that respondents shared in the belief that they were only participating in a survey.

Familiarizing Yourself With the Subject

Explore Subject Area	Develop Problem Statement
Industry Publications	Define Purpose
Websites and Social Media	Identify Conclusion
Interviews	Phase Problem as a Question

Give yourself some unstructured time at the beginning of the project to explore the general subject area, perhaps by reading industry publications and blogs, searching for trending topics on Twitter, visiting competitors’ websites, and interviewing experts within your organization. Scanning the tables of contents and indexes of books on the subject can give you a sense of how a broad subject area is divided into component topics.

When you have a basic grasp of the subject area, develop a problem statement that defines the problem or purpose of your research—the decision you need to make or the conclusion you need to reach at the end of the process. You may find it easier to phrase the problem as a question, such as “How can we improve customer satisfaction?” or “Does Apple’s new TV system pose a competitive threat to us?”

Identifying Information Gaps

Find Specific Information Gaps

Dig Deeper Into Purpose

Focus on Specific Issues

Your problem statement frames the purpose of your research, but it doesn’t usually tell you what specific information you need to find. Your next task is to dig deeper to discover the information gaps that need to be filled through research. 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.

For instance, the question “How can we improve customer satisfaction?” is too vague because many separate factors contribute to customer satisfaction. To get useful information, you would break this topic down into specific issues, such as product reliability and customer service skills. Digging further, you may discover that you don’t need to research product reliability because the company already tracks data on product repairs. However, if no one has ever measured the employees’ customer service skills, you would identify that as a definite information gap.

Prioritizing Research Needs

Constraints	Information
Limited Time	Limit Scope of Surveys and Interviews
Limited Money	“Need to Know” Questions
Unavailability of Qualified Subjects	“Nice to Know” Questions

Prioritizing your research needs is important because you won’t have the time or money to answer every question you might have. Moreover, if you’ll be using interviews or surveys, you’ll need to limit the number of questions you ask so that you don’t consume more time than people are willing to give. One simple way to prioritize is to divide your questions into “need to know” and “nice to know” and then toss out all the “nice to know” questions. If you start with a technique such as information gap analysis, you will get a clear idea of the information you truly need to collect.

Conducting Secondary Research

LO 13.2 Define secondary research, and explain how to evaluate, locate, and document information sources.

With a clear plan and careful prioritization, you’re ready to conduct research, and the first step is to see whether anyone else has already done some or all of the research you need. Consulting research that was done previously for another purpose is considered secondary research. The sources for such information include print and online periodicals, online databases, books, and other research reports. (Some companies specialize in reports on particular industries, companies, technologies, market regions, and other subjects.)

Don’t let the name secondary mislead you, though. You want to start with secondary research because it can save you considerable time and money, although you may have to pay to see someone else’s results. In contrast, primary research (see page 372) is new research done specifically for the current project.

Evaluating Sources (1 of 2)

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?

Where Did the Source Get the Information?

Evaluate your sources carefully to avoid embarrassing and potentially damaging mistakes. You cannot assume that the information you find is accurate, objective, and current. Answer the following questions about each piece of material:

●● Does the source have a reputation for honesty and reliability? Naturally, you’ll feel more comfortable using information from an established source that has a reputation for accuracy. But don’t let your guard down completely; even the finest reporters and editors can make mistakes. For sources that are new or relatively unknown, your safest bet is to corroborate anything you learn with information from several other sources.

●● Is the source potentially biased? The individual or organization providing the information might have a particular bias or point of view regarding the information and its context. Such bias is neither inherently bad nor unethical (unless it is being intentionally

hidden), but you need to be aware of it to interpret the information you find.

●● What is the purpose of the material? Was the material designed to inform others of new research, advance a position, or stimulate discussion? Was it designed to promote or sell a product? Be sure to distinguish among advertising, advocating, and informing.

●● Is the author credible? Find out whether the person or the publisher is known and respected in the field. Is the author someone with hands-on experience in the subject area or merely an observer with an opinion?

●● Where did the source get its information? Many sources of secondary information get their material from other secondary sources, removing you even further from the original data.

Evaluating Sources (2 of 2)

Can You Verify the Material Independently?

Is the Material Current?

Is the Material Complete?

Are All Claims Supported with Evidence?

Do the Source’s Claims Stand Up to Logical Scrutiny?

●● Can you verify the material independently? Verification can uncover biases or mistakes— which is particularly important when the information goes beyond simple facts to include projections, interpretations, and estimates. If you can’t verify critical information, let your audience know that.

●● Is the material current? Make sure you are using the most current information available by checking the publication or posting date.

●● Is the material complete? Have you accessed the entire document or only a selection from it? If it’s a selection, which parts were excluded? Do you need more detail?

●● Are all claims supported with evidence? Are opinions presented as facts? Does the writer make broad claims, such as “most people believe . . .,” without citing any surveys to prove his or her point?

●● Do the source’s claims stand up to logical scrutiny? Finally, step back and ask whether the information makes sense. If that little voice in your head says that something sounds suspicious, listen!

You probably won’t have time to conduct a thorough background check on all your sources, so focus your efforts on the most important or most suspicious pieces of information.

Locating Sources

Internal Resources	External Resources
Documents	Print and Online Resources
Knowledge Management System	Reference Librarian
Research Repository	Public Reports

Even if you intend to eventually conduct primary research, start with a review of any available secondary research. Inside your company, you might be able to find a variety of documents prepared for other projects that offer helpful information. Be sure to ask whether your company has a knowledge management system or some other repository for research results. (See “Managing Information” on page 379 for more on this topic.) Outside the company, you can choose from a wide range of print and online resources, some of which are included in Table 13.1 on the next page. (The list in this table represents a tiny fraction of the secondary resources available; ask a reference librarian for advice on researching specific business topics.) For instance, if you want to know more about a specific company, one of the first things you’ll need to find out is whether the company is public (sells shares of stock to the general public) or private. Public corporations, which are required to submit extensive financial reports to government agencies, usually have more information available than private companies

Finding Information at the Library

Newspapers and Periodicals

Business Books

Directories

Almanacs and Statistical Resources

Government Publication

Databases

Public, corporate, and university libraries offer an enormous array of business books, databases, newspapers, periodicals, directories, almanacs, and government publications. offer information and resources you can’t find anywhere else—including reference librarians who can show you how to plan and conduct effective searches.

●● Newspapers and periodicals. Libraries offer access to a wide variety of popular magazines, general business magazines, trade journals (which provide information about specific professions and industries), and academic journals (which provide research-oriented articles from researchers and educators). Check the library’s website or ask a librarian to find out which periodicals are available in print or digital formats.

●● Business books. Although generally less timely than newspapers, periodicals, and online sources, business books provide in-depth coverage of a variety of business topics. Many libraries now offer online access to their card catalogs so you can see whether they have specific titles in their collections.

●● Directories. Thousands of directories are published in print and digital formats in the United States, and many include membership information for all kinds of professions, industries, and special-interest groups.

●● Almanacs and statistical resources. Almanacs are handy guides to factual and statistical information about countries, politics, the labor force, and so on. One of the most extensive, the Statistical Abstract of the United States, published annually by the U.S.

Department of Commerce, contains statistics about occupations, government, population, health, business, crime, and the environment (also available online at www.census.gov).

●● Government publications. Information on laws, court decisions, tax questions, regulatory issues, and other governmental concerns is often available in collections of government documents. A librarian can direct you to the information you want.

●● Databases. Databases offer vast collections of searchable information, often in specific areas, such as business, law, science, technology, and education. Some of these are available only by institutional subscription, so the library may be your only way to gain access to them.

Finding Information Online

Search Approaches

Active Search Tools

Monitoring Selected Sources

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: those you can use to actively search for existing information and those you can use to monitor selected sources for new information. (Some tools can perform both functions.)

General-Purpose Online Search Tools

Pros	Cons
Ranked by Usefulness	No Human Editors
Millions of Webpages	No Uniform Search Techniques
Powerful Ranking Algorithms	Can’t Reach Deep Web

The most familiar search tools are general-purpose search engines, such as Google and Bing, which scan millions of websites to identify individual webpages that contain a specific word or phrase and then attempt to rank the results from most useful to least useful. Search engines have the advantage of scanning millions or billions of individual webpages, and the best engines use powerful ranking algorithms to present the pages that are probably the most relevant to your search request.

For all their ease and power, conventional search engines have three primary shortcomings: (1) no human editors are involved to evaluate the quality or ranking of the search results; (2) various engines use different search techniques, so they often find different material or present similar results in different order; and (3) search engines can’t reach all the content on some websites (this part of the Internet is sometimes called the hidden Internet or the deep web).

Improved Online Search Tools

Web Directories	Metasearch Engines	Online Databases
Human Editors	Multiple Search Engines	Free Public Access
Can Focus on Specific Media Type	Can Compare Results	Specialized Search Engines

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 such as DMOZ (dmoz.org) use human editors to categorize and evaluate websites. Some directories focus on specific media types, such as blogs or podcasts.

Second, metasearch engines help overcome the differences among search engines by formatting your search request for multiple search engines, making it easy to find a broader range of results. With a few clicks, you can compare results from multiple search engines to make sure you are getting a broad view of the material.

Third, online databases help address the challenge of the hidden Internet by offering access to newspapers, magazines, journals, digital copies of books, and other resources often not available with standard search engines. Some of these databases offer free access to the public, but others require a subscription (check with your library). Also, a variety of specialized search engines now exist to reach various parts of the hidden Internet.

Online Monitoring Tools

Automatically Monitor Select Sources

Subscribe to News Feeds

Follow People on Twitter

Create Alerts on Search Engines and Online Databases

Use Specialized Monitors

One of the most powerful aspects of online research is the ability to automatically monitor selected sources for new information so that you can get new information without repeating manual searches. The possibilities include subscribing to newsfeeds from blogs and websites; following people on Twitter and other microblogs; setting up alerts on search engines and online databases; and using specialized monitors such as TweetDeck and HootSuite to track tweets that mention specific companies or other terms.

Exercise care when setting up monitoring tools, however, because it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the flood of information. Remember that you can always go back and search your sources if you need to gather additional information.

Search Tips

Think Before You Search

Pay Attention to the Details

Don’t Limit Search Engines

Review Search and Display Options

Try Variations of Terms

Adjust the Scope of the Search

Look Beyond the First Few Pages

Search engines, metasearch engines, and databases offer a variety of ways to find information. To make the best use of any search engine or database, keep the following points in mind:

●● Think before you search. The neatly organized results you get from a search engine can create the illusion that the Internet is an orderly warehouse of all the information in the universe, but the reality is far different.

●● Pay attention to the details. Details can make all the difference in a search.

●● Don’t limit yourself to a regular web search engine. Google, Bing, and other search engines are remarkably powerful, but they can’t access all online content. Moreover, the content you need might not even be online.

●● Review the search and display options carefully. When using advanced search or while searching in databases, pay close attention to whether you are searching in the title, author, subject, or document field and whether the search is limited to particular types of documents (such as full-text documents only).

●● Try variations of terms. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, try abbreviations (CEO, CPA), synonyms (man, male), related terms (child, adolescent, youth), different spellings (dialog, dialogue), singular and plural forms (woman, women), nouns and adjectives (manager, management, managerial), and open and compound forms (online, on line, on-line). Some search engines automatically search for such synonyms.

●● Adjust the scope of your search, if needed. If a search yields little or no information, broaden your search by specifying fewer terms. Conversely, if you’re inundated with too many hits, use more terms to narrow your search.

●● Look beyond the first few pages of results. Don’t assume that the highest-ranking results are the best sources for you. Other powerful search tools include enterprise search engines that search all the computers on a company’s network and research and content managers such as LiveBinders and the Zotero browser extension. And don’t overlook the search functions in workplace messaging systems, groupware, and other closed systems.

Documenting Sources

Three Important Functions

Properly Credits Originator

Shows Sufficient Support for Your Message

Helps Readers Explore Topic in More Detail

Be sure to take advantage of source documentation tools whenever you can to help ensure that you accurately track all your sources. Most word-processing programs can automatically track and number endnotes for you, and you can use the “table of authorities” feature to create a bibliography of all the sources you’ve used. A wide variety of citation management or reference management tools are available with popular web browsers. You may document your sources through footnotes, endnotes, or some similar system (see Appendix B, “Documentation of Report Sources”). Whatever method you choose, documentation is necessary for books, articles, tables, charts, diagrams, song lyrics, scripted dialogue, letters, speeches, and anything else 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.

Chapter 1 notes that copyright law covers the expression of creative ideas, and copyrights can apply to a wide range of materials, including reports and other documents, web content, movies, musical compositions, lectures, computer programs, and even choreographed dance routines. Copyright protection is initiated the moment the expression is put into fixed form. Copyright law does not protect such elements as titles, names, short phrases, slogans, familiar symbols, or lists of ingredients or contents. It also doesn’t protect ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, although it does cover their description, explanation, or illustration. (Note that many of the entities that aren’t covered under copyright law are covered under other legal protections, such as trademarks for slogans and patents for devices and processes.)

Merely crediting the source is not always enough. According to the fair use doctrine, you can use other people’s work only as long as you don’t unfairly prevent them from benefiting as a result. For example, if you reproduce someone else’s copyrighted material in a report you’re writing, even if you properly identify the source, you may be preventing the author from selling that material to your readers.

Conducting Primary Research

LO 13.3 Define primary research, and outline the steps involved in conducting surveys and interviews.

If secondary research can’t provide the information and insights you need, your next choice is to gather the information yourself. This is the task of primary research, which is collecting data and information for the first time, rather than analyzing and reusing what other researchers have found. The two most common primary research methods for business writing are surveys and interviews, the focus of this section. Other primary techniques include observation and experiments, such as test-marketing a new product.

Gathering Information With Surveys

Must Be Reliable

Produces Identical Results When Repeated

Must Be Valid

Measures What It Is Intended to Measure

Choose Participants Carefully

Get Representative Sample of the Population

Use Research Handbook

Hire a Research Specialist

Surveys can provide invaluable insights on a wide variety of business topics, but they are useful only when they’re reliable and valid. A survey is reliable if it produces identical results when repeated. A survey is valid if it measures what it’s intended to measure. To conduct a survey that generates reliable and valid results, you need to choose research participants carefully and develop an effective set of questions. (A good research handbook can guide you through the process of selecting a sufficient number of representative participants. For important surveys on strategically important topics with much at stake, you’re usually better off hiring a research specialist who knows how to avoid errors during planning, execution, and analysis.)

When selecting people to participate in a survey, the most critical task is getting a representative sample of the population in question. For instance, if you want to know how U.S. consumers feel about something, you can’t just survey a few hundred people in a shopping mall. Different types of consumers shop at different times of the day and on different days of the week, and many consumers rarely, if ever, shop at malls. A survey that doesn’t represent the overall population will suffer from sampling bias.

Conducting Surveys (1 of 2)

Provide Clear Instructions

Ask for Information People Can Remember

Keep Questionnaire Short

Formulate Questions that are Easy to Analyze

Online surveys offer a number of advantages, including speed, cost, and the ability to adapt the question set along the way based on a respondent’s answers. However, they are also vulnerable to sampling bias because they capture only the opinions of people who visit particular websites and who want to participate, and these people might not be a representative sample of the population of interest.

To develop an effective survey questionnaire, start with the information gaps you identified earlier and then break these points into specific questions, choosing an appropriate type of question for each point. (Figure 13.2 on the next page shows various types of survey questions.) The following guidelines will help you produce results that are both valid and reliable:

●● Provide clear instructions to make sure people can answer every question correctly.

●● Don’t ask for information that people can’t be expected to remember, such as how many times they went grocery shopping in the past year.

●● Keep the questionnaire short and easy to answer; don’t expect people to give you more than 10 or 15 minutes of their time.

●● Whenever possible, formulate questions that provide answers that are easy to analyze. Numbers and facts are easier to summarize than opinions, for instance.

Conducting Surveys (2 of 2)

Avoid Leading Questions

Avoid Ambiguous Descriptors

Avoid Compound Questions

Make the Survey Adaptive

●● Avoid leading questions that could bias your survey. If you ask, “Do you prefer that we stay open in the evenings for customer convenience?” you’ll no doubt get a “yes.” Instead, ask, “What time of day do you normally do your shopping?”

●● 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 survey to branch automatically based on audience inputs. Not only does this sort of real-time adaptation deliver better answers, it reduces frustration for survey respondents as well.

Before you conduct a survey, test it on a sample group first to identify questions that might be confusing or ambiguous.

Gathering Information With Interviews

Types of Questions

Open-ended Questions

Closed Questions

Question Sequence

Be aware that the answers you receive in an interview are influenced by the types of questions you ask, by the way you ask them, and by each subject’s cultural and language background. Potentially significant factors include the person’s race, gender, age, educational level, and social status.

Ask open-ended questions (such as “Why do you believe that South America represents a better opportunity than Europe for this product line?”) to solicit opinions, insights, and information. Ask closed questions to elicit a specific answer, such as yes or no. However, don’t use too many closed questions in an interview, or the experience will feel more like a simple survey and won’t take full advantage of the interactive interview setting.

Think carefully about the sequence of your questions and the subject’s potential answers so you can arrange questions in an order that helps uncover layers of information. Also, consider providing the person with a list of questions at least a day or two before the interview, especially if you’d like to quote your subject in writing or if your questions might require your subject to conduct research or think extensively about the answers.

Types of Interviews

Recorded Interviews

Face-to-Face Interviews

Group Interviews

If you want to record the interview, ask the person ahead of time and respect his or her wishes. During the interview, be alert to new topics you might not have considered while planning the interview, and pursue them if they will shed light on your research questions As soon as possible after the interview, take a few moments to write down your thoughts, go over your notes, and organize your material. Look for important themes, helpful facts or statistics, and direct quotes. If you recorded the interview, transcribe it (take down word for word what the person said) or take notes from the recording just as you would while listening to someone in person.

Face-to-face interviews give you the opportunity to gauge reactions to your questions and observe the nonverbal signals that accompany the answers, but interviews don’t necessarily have to take place in person. For example, email interviews give subjects a chance to think through their responses thoroughly rather than rush to fit the time constraints of a face-to-face interview. Also, email interviews might be the only way you will be able to access some experts.

In addition to individual interviews, business researchers can also use a form of group interview known as the focus group. In this format a moderator guides a group through a series of discussion questions while the rest of the research team members observe through a one-way mirror. The key advantage of focus groups is the opportunity to learn from group dynamics as the various participants bounce ideas and questions off each other. Allowing a group to discuss topics and problems in this manner can uncover much richer information than can a series of individual interviews.

Processing Data and Information

LO 13.4 Describe the major tasks involved in processing research results.

After you’ve collected all the necessary secondary and primary information, the next step is to transform it into the specific content you need. For simple projects, you may be able to insert your material directly into your report, presentation, or other application. However, when you have gathered 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, or summarizing textual material; analyzing numeric data; drawing conclusions; and making recommendations.

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

Quoting

Reproduce the Material Exactly

Paraphrasing

Restating It in Your Own Words

Summarizing

Similar to Paraphrasing

Presents the Gist of the Material in Fewer Words

You can use textual information from secondary sources in three ways. Quoting a source means you reproduce the material exactly as you found it (giving full credit to the source, of course).

You can often maximize the impact of secondary material in your own writing by paraphrasing it—restating it in your own words and with your own sentence structures. Paraphrasing helps you maintain consistent tone, present information using vocabulary more familiar to your audience, and avoid the choppy feel of too many quotations. Of course, you still need to credit the originator of the information through a footnote, endnote, or in-text citation.

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.

●● Check your version against the source to verify that you have not altered the meaning.

●● Use quotation marks to identify any unique terms or phrases you have borrowed exactly from the source.

●● Record the source accurately so that you can give proper credit if you use this material in your report.

Summarizing is similar to paraphrasing but presents the gist of the material in fewer words than the original. An effective summary identifies the main ideas and major support points from your source material but leaves out minor details, examples, and other information that is less critical to your audience. Like quotations and paraphrases, summaries also require complete documentation of sources.

When paraphrasing and summarizing, preserve the intended message of the original while expressing the ideas in your own words and sentences. Remember that the goal is to help your audience relate to material that supports your message. Double-check your writing to make sure you didn’t subconsciously skew the other writer’s message to fit your own needs.

Analyzing Numeric Data

Figure Caption: Three Types of Data Measures: Mean, Median, and Mode

Research often produces numeric data—everything from sales figures to population statistics to survey answers. By themselves, these numbers might not provide the insights you or your audience require, so you’ll need to process the data to extract useful insights.

Even without advanced statistical techniques, you can use simple arithmetic to extract powerful insights from sets of research data. Three common and useful measures are shown in Table 13.2. The mean (which is what most people refer to when they use the term average) is the sum of all the items in a group divided by the number of items in that group. The median is the “middle of the road,” or the midpoint of a series (with an equal number of items above and below). The mode is the number that occurs more often than any other in a sample. It’s the best answer to a question such as “What is the usual amount?” Each of these three measures can give you different insights into a set of data.

Gaining Insights

Trends

Causation

Correlation

Cross-Tabulation

Next, look at the data to spot trends—definite patterns taking place over time, including growth, decline, and cyclical trends that vary between growth and decline. By examining data over a period of time, you can detect patterns and relationships that help you answer important questions.

Statistical measures and trends identify what is happening. To help you understand why those things are happening, look at causation (the cause-and-effect linkage between two factors, in which one causes the other to happen) and correlation (the simultaneous change in two variables you’re measuring, such as customer satisfaction dropping when product reliability drops).

Bear in mind that causation can be easy to assume but difficult to prove. The drop in customer satisfaction might have been caused by a new accounting system that fouled up customer invoices. To prove causation, you need to be able to isolate the suspected cause as the only potential source of the change in the measured effect. However, eliminating all but one possible cause isn’t always feasible, so you often have to apply careful judgment to correlations. Researchers frequently explore the relationships between subsets of data using a technique called cross-tabulation. For instance, if you’re trying to figure out why total sales rose or fell, you might look separately at sales data by customer age and gender, by purchase location, and by product type.

Guarding Against Mistakes and Misinterpretations

Guard Against Computational Errors

Be Cautious of Misrepresenting Results

Avoid Faulty Comparisons

Don’t Push Research Results Beyond Their Limits

Avoid Misleading Presentations

Numbers are easy to manipulate with spreadsheets and other computer tools, so be sure to guard against computational errors and misinterpretation of results. Double-check all calculations and document the operation of any spreadsheets you plan to share with colleagues. Common spreadsheet mistakes to watch for include errors in math formulas, references to unintended cells in the spreadsheet (resulting in the inclusion of data you don’t want or the exclusion of data you do want), and failures to verify the specific operation of the spreadsheet’s built-in math functions.

In addition to watching for computational errors, step back and look at your entire set of data before proceeding with any analysis. Do the numbers make sense, based on what you know about the subject? Are any data points suspicious? If the production numbers you’ve been measuring have never varied more than 10 percent month to month and then suddenly jumped 50 percent last month, is that new number real or an erroneous measurement?

Even when your data points are accurate and your analysis is technically correct, it’s still possible to misinterpret or misrepresent the results. Many analysis errors require statistical expertise to identify and fix, but even without advanced skills, you can take these precautions:

●● Avoid faulty comparisons. Make sure you compare “apples to apples” and not “apples to oranges,” as the saying goes.

●● Don’t push research results beyond their limits. The temptation to extract insights and assurances that aren’t really there can be quite strong, particularly in situations of great uncertainty. For instance, if you’re about to recommend that your company

invest millions of dollars in developing a new product based on your consumer research, you’re likely to “see” every possible justification in the data. Have a trusted colleague review your data to see whether he or she extracts the same conclusions.

●● Steer clear of misleading presentations. Even valid data can be presented in invalid ways (such as with distorted graphs), and it’s your responsibility to make sure the visual presentation of your data is accurate.

Applying Your Findings

LO 13.5 Explain how to summarize research results and present conclusions and recommendations.

After all your planning, research, and processing, you’re finally ready to apply your findings. This step can involve summarizing your results, drawing conclusions based on those results, and making recommendations.

Summarizing Your Research

Do Not Include Opinions,

Conclusions or Recommendations

Separate By Levels of Significance

Identify the Main Idea and

Key Support Points

Focus on the Audience’s Needs

A research summary is an unbiased condensation of the information uncovered in your research. (Summary in this context means a summary of your entire research project, not just a summary of secondary source material.) Summaries should not include opinions, conclusions, or recommendations. Summarizing is not always a simple task, and your readers will judge your ability to separate significant issues from less significant details. Identify the main idea and the key support points; separate them from details, examples, and other supporting evidence (see Figure 13.3). Focus your efforts on your audience, highlighting the information that is most important to the person who assigned the project or to those who will be reading the report.

However, focusing on the audience doesn’t mean conveying only the information your audience wants to hear. A good summary might contain nothing but bad news, if that’s what your research uncovered. Even if the summary isn’t pleasant, effective managers always appreciate and respect honest, complete, and perceptive information from their employees.

Drawing Conclusions

Two Criteria

Must Be Based Strictly on the Information in Your Report

Do not introduce new information

Conclusion Must be Logical

Follows accepted patterns of inductive or deductive reasoning

Use Appropriate Assumptions, Judgment Calls, and Creative Thinking

A conclusion is a logical interpretation of the facts and other information in a report. Reaching valid conclusions based on the evidence at hand is one of the most important skills you can develop in your business career. For a conclusion to be sound, it must meet two criteria. First, it must be based strictly on the information in your report. You shouldn’t introduce any new information in your conclusion. (If something is that important, it belongs in the body of the report.) Also, you can’t ignore any of the information you’ve presented, even if it doesn’t support your conclusion. Second, the conclusion must be logical, meaning it must follow accepted patterns of inductive or deductive reasoning. Conclusions that are based on unproven premises, appeal to emotion, make hasty generalizations, or contain any other logical fallacies are not valid.

Remember that your personal values or the organization’s values may also influence your conclusions; just be sure that you’re aware of how these biases can affect your judgment. If a bias affects your conclusion, you should explain it to your audience. Also, don’t expect all team members to examine the evidence and arrive at the same conclusion. One of the reasons for bringing additional people into a decision is to gain their unique perspectives and experiences.

Even though conclusions need to be logical, they may not automatically or obviously flow from the evidence. Many business decisions require assumptions, judgment calls, and creative thinking—in fact, the ability to see patterns and possibilities that others can’t see is one of the hallmarks of innovative business leaders.

Making Recommendations

Suggest What to Do

Based Upon Logical Analysis and Sound Conclusions

Practical and Acceptable

Adequately Describe Steps

Whereas 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. Finally, when making a recommendation, be certain you have adequately described the steps that come next. Don’t leave your readers wondering what they need to do to act on your recommendation.

Managing Information

Contribute to Knowledge Base

Knowledge Management System

Social Media Tools

Group Contributions

Conducting your research well does more than provide strong support for your own writing projects. Your individual research projects are also an important contribution to your organization’s collective knowledge base. To organize information and make it readily available to everyone in the company, many firms use some form of knowledge management (KM), a set of technologies, policies, and procedures that let colleagues capture and share information throughout an organization. Social media tools have recently been enhancing the flexibility and capability of KM systems, making it easier for more people to contribute to and benefit from shared knowledge and transforming knowledge into more of a living entity that is part of an ongoing conversation.