This document provides resources and guidance for conducting research on human resource management. It outlines steps for developing a research project such as identifying the main topic and questions. It then describes various information sources such as the NAU online library, scholarly articles, databases, and books. Criteria are presented for evaluating source credibility, including whether sources are peer-reviewed. Specific databases like EBSCO, ProQuest, and ABI/Inform are highlighted for searching business and HR topics. Additional resources like organizations' websites, social media, and librarian assistance are also mentioned.

1. FINDING RESEARCH
RESOURCES
ON HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
MT3050
HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
N A T I O N A L A M E R I C A N U N I V E R S I T Y

2. NAU Online Library
http://library.national.edu

3. STARTING YOUR PROJECT
What is the main purpose of
your project/ research?
What is/are the main
question(s) of your project/
research?
Do you feel that you have
background information
about the main topic?
If yes, try to list the key
concepts that you already
know.
What other information do you
need? and where can you
find it?

4. IS THERE MORE TO LIFE THAN GOOGLE?
How Do I Find
(The RIGHT)
Information Sources?

5. HOW TO DETERMINE THE CREDIBILITY OF A SOURCE
Illustration by Karen Christensson
http://www.radcab.com/

6. RECOGNIZING A SCHOLARLY ARTICLE
Scholarly Articles Always:
 Cite their sources in the form of footnotes or bibliographies
 Are written by an authority or expert in the field whose credentials are prominently
stated
 Often have a formal appearance with tables, graphs, and diagrams
 The language includes specialized terms and the jargon of the discipline
 Lengthy articles, usually more than 7 pages and often over 20 pages in length
 Contain original research, experimentation, or in-depth studies in the field
 Advertising is minimal or non-existent when you are looking at the print or PDF version
Not all scholarly articles are peer-
reviewed. All peer-reviewed
articles are
scholarly though.

7. HOW TO DETERMINE IF A DOCUMENT IS PEER REVIEWED

8. ADDITIONAL SOURCES TO
HELP YOU ANALYZE CREDIBILITY
 Critically Analyzing Information Sources (Cornell University Library)
 Peer-Reviewed Materials (University of Illinois)
 Journal Articles (Colorado State University)
 Critical Evaluation of Internet Resources (University of Illinois)
 How to Evaluate a Webpage (Colorado State University)
Once you have found some sources, you
need to evaluate them to determine
whether the information is
to your thesis.

9. THE WEB VS. LIBRARY DATABASES
A COMPARISON

10. I FOUND A BOOK OR ARTICLE I NEED, BUT NAU DOESN’T OWN IT! NOW WHAT DO I DO?

11. TRY INTERLIBRARY LOAN!
"Interlibrary
loan is the
process by
which a library
requests
material from, or
supplies
material to,
another library.
The purpose of
interlibrary loan
. . . is to obtain,
upon request of
a library user,
material not
available in the
user's local
library.“
Courtesy of the
American Library
Association

13. CREEDO TOOLS FOR FINDING TOPICS

14. CREDO MIND MAP

15. EBSCO DATABASE SEARCHING

16. BOOLEAN OPERATORS AND SEARCHES
AN
D
Boolean Operators. Boolean Operators are used to connect and
define the relationship between your search terms. When searching
electronic databases, you can use Boolean operators to either
narrow or broaden your record sets. The three Boolean
NOT

17. EBSCO– Human Resources AND Discrimination Search

18. NARROWING THE FIELD WITH SUBJECT TERMS

19. EBSCO E-BOOKS (USED TO BE NET LIBRARY)

20. BOOK REVIEWS IN ACADEMIC SEARCH PREMIER

21. PROQUEST BUSINESS DATABASES

22. ABI INFORM JOURNAL SEARCH - JOURNAL OF THE
INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY FOR CASE STUDIES

23. OTHER BUSINESS RESOURCES

24. BUSINESS VIDEOS

25. NBC LEARN VIDEOS

26. IS GOOGLE SCHOLAR THE SAME AS GOOGLE?
http://scholar.google .com
Google Scholar is an online, freely accessible search engine that lets users look for both
physical and digital copies of articles. It searches a wide variety of sources, including academic
publishers, universities, and preprint depositories looking for:
• Peer-reviewed articles
• Theses
• Books
• Technical reports
• Abstracts
• Reprints

27. WHY A DATABASE MAY BE A
BETTER CHOICE THAN GOOGLE SCHOLAR
Databases:
provide the ability to focus search by subject area
allow users to sort results according to date and relevance
allow users to sort results by type of material (academic journal, magazine, newspaper, etc.)
contain the ability to limit searches by a variety of criteria
will never charge you for the full text of an article if the University of Illinois has a subscription to that database
As a student, you have access to countless databases that cover a wide variety of disciplines, areas that
may not be represented as well by Google Scholar.
Google Scholar:
does not contain an easy way to sort articles in your results list
may charge you to view the full text of an article you've found
does not clearly specify what type of material (academic journal, magazine, newspaper etc.) is in the results list
provides full text of some electronic articles but is not as helpful in tracking down print articles
Evaluate Your Sources: Whether you get
an article from a database or from
Google Scholar, make sure to evaluate it
to determine if it fits what you are
looking for.

28. MANAGING YOUR TIME
http://planner.bulibtools.net/

30. ARE THERE OTHER RESOURCES?

31. HR RELATED ORGANIZATIONS
HR.COM – FREE WHITE PAPERS

32. USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN RESEARCH
Facebook
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)
Human Resources Management Reference Website
RSS Feeds
Society for Human Resource Management
Electronic Mailing Lists
HRDIV_NET
LinkedIn
Human Resource related groups
Online Groups
Google HR Groups
When using any of these sources, you MUST
evaluate them for credibility, the same way
you would any other source!

33. HUMAN RESOURCES DIVISION OF
THE ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT
“The primary purposes of the Division are the encouragement of professional scholarship in personnel and
human resource topics by interested members of the Division and other members of the Academy of Management,
dissemination of results of this scholarship, provision for fellowship among persons with professional interest in
human resource topics, and engaging in related professional activities of interest to the membership.”
Subscribing to HRDIV_NET:
Members can subscribe to HRDIV_NET, by sending an email to mark@markhuselid.com. The
body of the message should contain only the following one-line command:
ADD HRDIV_NET email address firstname lastname
(Insert your own email address, first name and last name in the command, where shown)
As with all sources, you will have to decide whether or not the
posts have scholarly (i.e. credible) value!
(Clearly, I cannot Stress this point enough)

34. GOOGLE HR GROUPS (WATCH CREDIBILITY!!!)

35. NEED MORE HELP? ASK A LIBRARIAN
Ask a Librarian is monitored seven days per
week, with the exception of official NAU
holidays.