If you want to do research, you might start with how do reporters do investigative reporting? One method is to review the books, the journalism students are given and one will similar to what Canadian students are given – Digging Deeper by Robert Cribbb, Dean Jobb, David McKie and Fred Vallance-Jones published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 2006.

Key Primary Sources

Websites  – what are you curious about?

Newspapers – give a picture of what is happening in the community

Magazines – every broad topic has a magazine, what do the senior people in the industry read?

Journals – all university professors have to publish, they publish in journals in their field. They write for those in the field which may mean you need to be familiar with the terms.

Theses – some universities programs to graduate the student needs to write a theses – many are on line, but if you are near university you can read them at the university library.

Books – libraries are filled with books, to help you and invariably someone has written a book on what you are curious about, if you are from a smaller library system you can borrow the book through inter library loans.

Radio and TV transcripts – the shows need content to fill the airways and the transcripts are available, sometimes on line.

Mailing lists – will help you determine who has information about what your are curious.

Blogs – anyone can write one and people tend to write for a reason.

Just remember all secondary sources need to be independently verified, but they are a great starting point.

Using Public Records

One complaint many people will have is completing paperwork for the government. The government collects a great deal of information and the good news is the information can be accessed. It may take a while but you will catch on to the forms.

Before you start with the government you have to ask 3 broad questions:

1. What level of government has jurisdiction over the issue – federal, state or municipal
2. What specific department would have the information? Does the issue cross departments?
3. How are the records maintained and released to the public?

The government requires information and that will lead to whether the person or the company is giving all the information they could?

Accessing Laws and Justice System Records

Whenever there is a law, there is someone breaking it and that information will become public if you know where to look. Law suits, bankruptcy, divorce courts provide information between people and companies.

Web searching

The internet does not make a stupid journalist smart, but it does make a smart journalist smarter, says journalist Julian Sher.

Try typing your name  – hopefully many things will come up but will they are be helpful or you need to narrow the search.

Phrase searching – most search engines are not good at use double quotation marks ”  Joe Smith”

Searching document titles – try title:”Joe Smith”

Domain and URL searches:   Every website address ends with a top-level domain suffix such as .com (businesses) or .mil (military sites) or .edu (Universities and colleges)

domain:edu AND “Joe Smith”

Format Searches  – consider a document’s format as a search option. Google Advanced lets you limit your search to PowerPoint presentations, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, Adobe Acrobat files and others.

Finding experts – ProfNet (www.prnewswire.com)   is a quick way to reach into those who have expertise into your area of curiosity.

You can also try http://www.experts.com  (an international expert database) and many countries have databases for their home base experts.

In your search be open to new lines of inquiry, and each time you get a relevant document, consider not only what it tells you but where it might lead you.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, learning where to look takes time but can lead to information which will save you money. As an investor in a public company, you made it for a reason and it is worth going back to the reasons and an information search helps you determine if the reason still exists. Often times the easiest method is to keep it simple – how does the company make its money? is the company profitable? can it pay its dividend and are expectations for it to rise? If you can easily answer the questions your research is done and you can enjoy the other parts of your life.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.