BASIC STUDY GUIDE
Need To Find Something On The Internet?
The Internet is composed of more than 20 million host computers and tons and tons of information. When we refer to the
World Wide Web, we are referring to the graphical portion of the Internet. The key to doing effective research on the
Internet is getting to the right information quickly. There are a number of excellent sites that will provide you with the
"basics" of using the Internet and pointers on using Internet search engines to find the information you need. Some of
these sites include:
Getting Started on the Internet http://www.imagescape.com/helpweb
A helpful and intelligent introduction to the Internet from the Imaginary Landscape team.
Internet Tutorials http://library.albany.edu/internet
Collection of tutorials assembled and maintained by the University at Albany Libraries for topics from basic Internet to
search engines to software training.
Learn the Net: An Internet
Guide and Tutorial http://www.learnthenet.com/english/
Multilingual guide offers a humane introduction to the basics of cyberspace.
Zen and the Art of the Internet http://www.cs.indiana.edu/docproject/zen/zen-1.0_toc.html
Search Engines
The most popular search engines are:
AltaVista http://www.altavista.com
CNet http://www.search.com
Excite http://www.excite.com
Google http://www.google.com
Go http://www.go.com
Lycos http://www.lycos.com
Northern Light http://www.northernlight.com/search.html
WebCrawler http://www.webcrawler.com
Yahoo http://www.yahoo.com.
All of these "general" search engines will yield different results given similar search criteria. This is because each search
engine is organized differently and uses different databases. If there is too much information for you as a result of a search,
look more closely at the advanced search options that are provided by many of the search engines. If you follow their
instructions, you can effectively narrow your search.
There are also "specialized" search engines, such as:
LawCrawler http://www.lawcrawler.com
Rominger Legal http://www.romingerlegal.com
Thomas Register of American Business http://www4.thomasregister.com
Need To Do Some Business Research?
Research in economics and business requires familiarity with a number of different kinds of sources: statistical,
informational, and analytical. The researcher may need demographic data, sales figures, analysis of a trend, or up-to-date
information on changes in a given industry. This section provides leads to research tools for economics and business.
CEO Express http://www.ceoexpress.com
This site offers links to a vast collection of business resources. Membership is required.
Researching Companies Online http://home.sprintmail.com/~debflanagan
An excellent guide to the process of researching companies with lots of links to the tools used in the research process.
United States
Corporate Information http://www.corporateinformation.com
This site provides information on publicly traded companies (i.e., companies that trade on one of the stock markets), privately
held companies, regional-based sites (i.e., companies in one particular region), and sector-specific sites that contain
information about companies within a particular sector or industry.
The Forbes 500
Top Private Companies http://www.forbes.com
This list gives the top 500 private companies and their ranking. Clicking on the company names gives more information and
a brief write-up on the firm. Originally published in Forbes magazine.
Business Journals http://bizjournals.bcentral.com
Business Journals publishes metropolitan business newspapers in 35 American cities. Most of the news on the site is directed
toward small businesses.
Annual Report Service http://www.prars.com/
The Public Register's Annual Report Service (PRARS) offers "company financials, including annual reports, prospectuses or
10k's on over 3,200 public companies" free of charge to the U.S. investing public.
Hoover’s Online http://www.hoovers.com
Hoover's Online also features links to news, lists, stock quotes, and other products, such as Hoover's Industry Snapshots
(global industry overviews). Hoover's offers approximately 14,000 company capsules (brief company descriptions and
financials) for free, and approximately 4,000 company profiles (company histories, strategies, market positions, major events,
and other information) available via online subscription.
Thomas Register http://www.thomasregister.com/
A large index of manufacturers: you can search on the name or the product of the 155,000 U.S. and Canadian companies in
its database.
CorpTech Database http://www.corptech.com/
This site lists 45,000 manufacturers and developers of high-tech products. This site also has lots of other demographic
information and good search features.
Need More Business Information?
This section contains sites that may also be of assistance in researching a private (or public) company. The following sites
don't have corporate profiles, but they may tell you something interesting when you are researching a company. Sites with
raw data are often better research sources than sites that attempt to rank the "best" companies.
U.S. Patent and Trademark Database http://www.uspto.gov
Sometimes it is useful to know what (if any) patents a company has. This site will help you search, but remember that
sometimes a patent might be in the individual inventor's name or perhaps in the name of a subsidiary. Of course, you can also
check individuals' patents here.
Copyright Research http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright
Research copyrights registered since 1978 at the Library of Congress.
RTK Net Environmental Databases http://www.rtk.net
Provided by the Right-to-Know Network, this site contains mirrors of various government databases about environmental
issues that companies face. The searching takes a bit of getting used to, but there are help files available.
Occupational Safety &
Health Administration http://www.osha.gov
Get all Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspections and violations noted since 1972.
Federal Trade Commission http:// www.ftc.gov
With this searchable archive, you can search Formal Actions to see if the FTC has ever taken action against a company.
Federal Election Commission http://www.fec.gov
Find out if a company or other organization has given "soft money,” and to whom.
Need To Do Some General Research?
Britannica Internet Guide http://www.britannica.com
Dictionary http://www.dictionary.com
Research-It http://www.itools.com/research-it/research-it.html
Thesauraus http://www.thesaurus.com
Need To Locate A Government Agency?
Bureau of the Census http://www.census.gov
Bureau of Labor Statistics http://stats.bls.gov
FCC http://www.fcc.gov
HUD Homes http://www.hud.gov
NASA http://www.nasa.gov
Small Business Administration http://www.sba.gov
U.S. House of Representatives http://www.house.gov
U.S. Postal Service http://www.usps.gov
U.S. Senate http://www.senate.gov
White House http://www.whitehouse.gov
Need A Job?
Job Bank http://www.ajb.dni.us
America’s Job Bank is a partnership between the U.S. Department of Labor and the state-operated public employment
service.
Monster http://www.monster.com
Monster.com provides links for employers and job seekers. They claim to post over 1,000,000 jobs on any given day. They
also provide career advice and employment outlook.
Occupational Outlook Handbook http://www.bls.gov/oco
U.S. occupations are featured in this information-rich resource from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It includes job duties,
working conditions, training and educational requirements, salary, and number of people employed in an occupation as well
as a projection of growth or decline in available positions.
Interested In Sports?
Baseball http://www.majorleaguebaseball.com
ESPN http://espnet.sportszone.com
Golf http://www.golfweb.com
Indy Cars http://www.cart.com
NASCAR http://www.nascar.com
NBA http://www.nba.com
NFL http://www.nfl.com
NHL http://www.nhl.com
Sports Illustrated http://www.sportsillustrated.com
Need To Call Someone?
555-1212 http://www.555-1212.com
AT&T http://www.att.com
MCI http://www.mci.com
Sprint http://www.sprint.com
Toll-Free Numbers http://www.tollfree.att.net/tf.html
Infospace http://www.infospace.com/
A complete telephone guide for the United States: white pages and yellow pages.You can search for businesses by name or
category. The site claims to have 12 million businesses and organizations in its database. Also, it has a host of other features,
including reverse telephone lookup.
Verizon Bigbook http://www.bigbook.com/
Names, addresses, phone numbers, and business sectors of over 11 million U.S. businesses.
Lookup USA http://www.lookupusa.com/
Names, addresses, and phone numbers of millions of American businesses. Also provided for free is a credit rating (e.g.,
excellent, very good, good, etc). For $3 you can order a brief profile about a company. A sample has been provided for free.
Want To Watch Some TV?
ABC http://www.abc.com
CBS http://www.cbs.com
CNBC http://www.cnbc.com
CNN http://www.cnn.com
Discovery http://www.discovery.com
NBC http://www.nbc.com
MSNBC http://www.msnbc.com
MTV http://www.mtv.com
Fox http://www.fox.com
PBS http://www.pbs.org
UTV Net http://www.ultimatetv.com
Weather Channel http://www.weather.com
Want To Read A Newspaper?
Boston Globe http://www.boston.com
Business Strategies Newspaper http://www.bizstrat.com
Chicago Sun http://www.suntimes.com
Chicago Tribune http://www.chicago.tribune.com
New York Times http://www.nytimes.com
Philadelphia Inquirer http://www.phillynews.com/inq
USA Today http://www.usatoday.com
The Wall Street Journal http://www.wsj.com
Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com
Want To Read A Magazine?
BusinessWeek http://www.businessweek.com
Inc. Magazine Online http://www.inc.com
InfoWorld http://www.infoworld.com
Internet World http://www.internetworld.com
Fast Company http://www.fastcompany.com
Fortune Magazine http://www.fortune.com
Minority Business Entrepreneur http://www.mbemag.com
Newsweek http://www.newsweek.com
Management Today http://www.managementtoday.haynet.com
PC Magazine http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag
Reader's Digest http://www.readersdigest.com
Sports Illustrated http://www.cnnsi.com/
Success Magazine http://www.SuccessMagazine.com
Time http://pathfinder.com/time
U.S. News & World Report http://www.usnews.com
Women's Work World http://www.wwork.com
Need A Break?
Game Web http://www.thegw.com
Gamesville http://www.bingozone.com
Gaming Zone http://www.zone.com
Happy Puppy http://www.happypuppy.com
Sierra On-Line http://www.sierra.com
Astrology http://www.astrology.net
Boulder Cam http://www.gwha.com/cgi-bin/bouldercam
Comic Strip http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics
Dilbert http://www.dilbert.com
Free Email http://www.warmmail.com
Horoscope http://www.adze.com/today
Tarot http://www.facade.com/attraction/tarot
Need To Locate A Professional Organization?
Academy of Management http://www.aom.pace.edu
AIESEC http://www.aiesec.org
American Association for
Training and Development http://www.astd.org
Center for American
Indian Enterprise Development http://www.ncaied.org
Decision Sciences Institute http://dsi.gsu.edu
Dun and Bradstreet http://www.dnb.com
eWatch http://www.ewatch.com
Forrester Research http://www.forrester.com
Human Resource Planning Society http://www.hrps.org
INFORMS--Institute for Operations Research
and the Management Sciences http://www.informs.org
International Association for Human
Resource Information Management http://www.ihrim.org
International Business Ethics Institute http://www.business-ethics.org
International Institute for Learning http://www.iil.com
International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) http://www.iso.ch
International Personnel
Management Association http://www.ipma-hr.org
National Association
of Young Venture Capitalists http://www.venturecapital.com
National Center for Employee Ownership http://www.nceo.org
National Institute of Standards and
Technology (Baldrige Quality Award) http://www.quality.nist.gov
Production and Operations
Management Society http://www.poms.org
The Services Operations Management Area http://soma.byu.edu
Society for Human Resources Management http://www.shrm.org
Small Business Advancement
National Center http://www.sbaer.uca.edu
Strategy and Business http://www.strategy-business.com
Strategic Management Society http://www.smsweb.org
Net Impact—New Leaders for Better Business http://www.srb.org
Team Leadership Results http://www.team-leadership.com
WorkSpace Resources http://www.workspace-resources.com
United States Association for Small
Business and Entrepreneurship http://www.usasbe.org
Need To Make Money?
A.M.E.X. http://www.amex.com
Chicago Board of Trade http://www.cbot.com
Investing http://www.quicken.com/investments/
NASDAQ Stock http://www.nasdaq.com
NYSE http://www.nyse.com
Need Credit?
American Express http://www.americanexpress.com
Diners Club http://www.dinersclub.com
Discover http://www.discovercard.com
MasterCard http://www.mastercard.com
VISA http://www.visa.com