Economics 109: Business Ethics — Library Research Guide
Off Campus Access - To access the library research databases referenced on this guide from off campus, you will need to login to OCA. Click here for information regarding the service.
Use this chat box to instant messsage your research question on Tues. OR Thurs. evenings between 9&10pm OR, you may leave a message any time and I will contact you later.
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Recommended Websites
Use the sites listed below the same way one would use an Encyclopedia. They will provide context, keywords and industry-specific terminology you may then use in the library catalog or recommended databases.
Worldwatch Institute Good Stuff? - START HERE- Guide to products and their social and environmental impacts. Good general source, useful for context and keyword building.
How Products are Made - not all products will be included here, but useful starting point for getting names of raw materials used or manufacturing process for some products (lipstick, beef jerky, for example).
The Green Guide - link to articles about products (cosmetics, personal care items, appliances). Useful for assessing impacts of production and ethical issues involved in products.
Corporate Sunshine Working Group - organization that works to "... enforce and expand Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) corporate social and environmental disclosure requirements." Good overview of the rules for CSR and useful source for determining which companies and which products do not comply, or do not fully comply. May be helpful for ethics portion of the research assignment.
Business Human Rights Resource Center - an international organization that has a collaborative relationship with Amnestly International. This is a good source for the ethics portion of the research project, as well as a good source for finding information about companies that may be involved in your product's production.
Ceres - "...network of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working with companies and investors to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change." The site includes listings of corporate social responsibility reports. You may also look up companies that produce your product and look for their CSR information. If they have a report, they will post it on-line. Look at their publications page.
Environmental Working Group - non profit group that focuses on public health and the environment. Note, page also has information about pesticides and produce.
EPA - Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Government.
UCSC-licensed source:Encyclopedia of American Industries - provides an overview of the industry, its NAICS and SIC codes and names of industry leaders.
Campaign for Safe Cosmetics - pay attention to the resources section of the site. A downloadable brochure that includes information about safety issues with cosmetics, helpful for ethics, production issues.
FDA Cosmetics Site - page focused on issues related to cosmetics regulation.
Skin Deep - Environmental Working Group database. Search by product name to determine safety of products.
Organic Grass-Fed Beef Coalition - references to articles about benefits of grass-fed beef. The Time article referenced will have good stats and market data to track down.
USA.gov - the U.S. government's search engine. This will search government websites exclusively. Useful for finding information about product regulations and industry regulations.
Google Scholar - "...search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations." This is an academically-focused Google search, more appropriate to a research project. UC-eLinks will show up in search results if UCSC owns an item you find.
if you are working off campus, login to OCA before using the databases below.
Business Source Premier :Searchable database of articles from scholarly business journals and other sources. Subjects include management, economics, finance, accounting, and international business.
Subject area(s): ['General Subjects', 'Social Sciences']. Covers: 1965 - current, though a few select journals are available from the 1940's and 1950's.
Try your product name and keywords: environment, environmental waste, pollution, efficiency, cost benefit, etc.
NOTE: Use UC-eLinks to locate items owned by UCSC.
CSA/Illumina: Choose from any of the 30+ databases provided by CSA (formerly Cambridge Scientific Abstracts.) Cross-database searching is allowed. Subject area(s): ['Art and Art History', 'General Subjects', 'Humanities', 'Science and Engineering', 'Social Sciences'].
Type CSA/Illumina in the search box.
Select Advanced Search.
Select Social Sciences from the subject drop down box located directly under the green search button.
Select or deselect individual databases from the link labeled "specific databases" next to the drop down box.
NOTE: Use UC-eLinks to locate items owned by UCSC.
Econlit : EconLit is a searchable database of citations with selected abstracts of literature in economics. Includes coverage of major journals as well as articles in collective volumes (essays, proceedings, etc.), books, book reviews, dissertations, and working papers.
Subject area(s): Social Sciences. Covers: 1969-present.
NOTE: there are no direct links to full text or cruzcat/melvyl searches in Econlit; open two browsers to search for articles and check source citations in Cruzcat/Melvyl
Use the Library Catalog, Cruzcat, to find books we own at UCSC. Following are some recommended subject headings:
Cruzcat Subjects (this list is not exhaustive). Try these subjects as keywords in the databases, too. And, try keywords or subjects/descriptors that worked in the databases in Cruzcat, too.
Many of the library databases will export and format citations into MLA, APA or other bibliography/works cited formats. When saving or sending an article to yourself, look for terms like "export citations," OR "choose a bliography style" and follow instructions to create a fully formatted bibliography for your paper.
UC-eLinks will also allow you to copy and paste a formatted citation. Choose the option "copy and paste citation" link located under the header "Add Citation to Bibliography."
NOTE: Always verify the format of the citation with your style guide/manual. Sometimes exported citations can drop portions of a citation - double check. It is still significantly less time-consuming to verify the accuracy of a format than it is to manually format all of your citations.
Zotero and Endnote Web - two free web-based resources for collecting research sources, creating and exporting a finished bibliography.
Off Campus Access - To access the library research databases referenced on this guide from off campus, you will need to login to OCA. Click here for information regarding the service. 