The University of Adelaide Library

Library tutorial for wine marketing

Section 7. Finding information for an assignment: summary

While there is no single way to search for information for an assignment or essay, the following example may help suggest possible approaches using the methods described earlier in this tutorial.

Assume your topic is:

Explain the difference between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and show how they are related. With examples from the food and wine industries, explain how customer satisfaction can be measured. Why is it important for a firm to maintain customers over the long term?

First step:

Think about the key concepts in your topic. Start looking in sources that provide definitions of terms or an overview eg dictionaries, encyclopaedias (in print or on the Web), Internet sites, textbooks.

The Library's Resource guides lead to sources that can be useful for an overview. From the Library home page, choose the Resource guides tab, then the subject of interest to you: For example:

Wine marketing
Marketing

try using a metasearch engine eg Dogpile which will search several search engines at once
try a general search engine such as Google
try a more scholarly search engine such as Google Scholar

In searching the Internet: Use the Advanced search option, so you can specify that all the terms should be present

Check whether truncation symbols e.g. * are required, or the search engine has automatic truncation (as Google has)

See the Library's information on search engines, with recommendations and links to information on how to search them effectively.

Remember the principles of evaluating Internet resources (authors' credentials? any references? up-to-date? balanced?) when looking at web sites.

You should consider the key concepts in this topic as being:

customer satisfaction
measurement of customer satisfaction
customer loyalty
customer retention
food industry
wine industry

If you need a definition of customer or consumer satisfaction, look at dictionaries of marketing terms first.
For example, you will find the following dictionaries have detailed definitions of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty::

Macmillan dictionary of marketing and advertising / edited by Michael A. Baker

available in Waite Reference 658.8003 M167.3

The Blackwell encyclopedic dictionary of marketing [electronic resource]

available online

As you read, try to define the context, essentials and breadth of the topic and its literature

What terms recur in the sources you are looking at? i.e. do the same terms appear in different sources?
Are there limits you wish to set, e.g. geographically to Australia. Do you need to extend your search to other countries?
What other aspects should you be thinking about that are relevant to your topic as suggested by your lecturer, e.g. customer services, total quality management?
What are the dates of the information you find? Do you need more recent/earlier information? Is the topic well developed with extensive literature?
Do the overview sources have lists of useful references (bibliographies)?

Second step:

Summaries or overviews are not enough in themselves. Try to extend your view of the topic through books. Remember that a specific topic is likely to be included in chapters of more general books on marketing, as there will not be many complete books on the topic.

Look in the Catalogue subject and keyword options for books on a specific topic. Consider:

searching the terms revealed by your overview
trying more general texts and books that might include chapters on the topic
searching by keywords combined with AND, e.g. customer? and satisfaction (reminder: use truncation symbol ? to search for plurals).
Be aware that if you add more keywords, e.g. wine? to the search, you may get limited results, as the topic is likely to be included in more general marketing books.
searching by subject heading: try

Consumer satisfaction,
Customer loyalty,
Customer relations,
Customer services,
Wine industry,
Food industry and trade

limiting or sorting your search by date to make it easier to find recent books

Third step:

You need to look at journal articles for

the topic discussed in more detail than is available in books
recent developments
areas of disagreement: you often find a greater range of views than in books
gaps in information you've gathered so far
data or statistics you lack
speculation on future possible areas of research or application
how the issue is presented to the public through the general media, e.g. newspapers.

You can find articles:

cited in books you've found
through database searches

In database searches, consider:

trying several databases
experimenting with different search terms, truncated terms, combinations of terms
limiting to English
limiting to the last few years

Databases you could try:

are listed under the link Use databases to find journal and newspaper articles, on the Library home page, or the Databases tab at the top of every Library web page.
Select the subject, e.g. Wine marketing, or Business, and a list of relevant databases will be displayed. Click on the link to start searching the database.

Try a preliminary database search with the terms you have gathered so far. If this produces a very large result, think about ways of reducing it.

add more terms - use AND to add additional terms, e.g. try consumer satisfaction and wine* ; customer retention and wine*; consumer satisfaction and (measure* or survey*)
(note that the asterisk* in database searches is the truncation symbol and retrieves plurals and variations on endings of words)
look at the thesaurus or subject guide, if the database has one, for preferred terms, or related terms. For example, some thesaurus terms that may be relevant in the database Business Source Complete: quality assurance, quality control, quality of service
limit the search to the title and abstract of articles, rather than full text (check Advanced Search options)
limit to the last two or three years since the books you have found may have covered earlier developments fairly well and later articles will refer to earlier articles
limit to English language articles only

If you get a small number of citations from your preliminary search, think about ways of expanding your search:

reduce the number of terms you are using, e.g. you will get more results without adding and australia to the search.
use more general terms, e.g. if you don't find enough information using the term consumer satisfaction, try the broader terms consumers--attitudes; consumer behavior (NOTE: remember to use American spelling in the major databases such as Business Source Complete.
use truncation or alternate spellings.
broaden your search by adding terms using OR, e.g. (wine* or food). Remember to enclose terms linked by OR with brackets.
look at the thesaurus or subject guide for other terms you can use.
note the author of relevant articles and search for other articles by the same author
search full-text of articles (check Advanced Search options)

Trade journals

Some relevant information will be found in trade journals, e.g. The Australian and New Zealand wine industry journal; Harpers: the wine & spirit weekly, etc. These journals are not consistently indexed in databases, although you should always start with a database search. You can sometimes search the tables of contents online, and then access the article in the print journal in the Library.

For example, The Australian and New Zealand wine industry journal, which is held in print format in the Waite Library, and is available online from 2006 onwards, also has online tables of contents which can be searched by keyword.

See the Wine marketing resource guide for links to the tables of contents of various trade and academic journals.

Fourth step:

Plan and write your assignment and create a bibliography of references
to the books, journal articles and Web sites you have consulted.

Use the Faculty-preferred guidelines titled "Written communication in the agricultural and natural resource sciences " available from here. (To access this electronic resource you will be asked for your University of Adelaide ID and password)

You have now completed the library skills tutorial for Wine marketing.

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