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MKTG 440: Content Dev. & Inbound Mktg

Resources to help identify professional skills and develop a blog's target audience persona.

How should you use books and articles for this assignment?

Brainstorming: Search for guides and handbooks on professional/vocational skills as a whole to get brainstorm topics. Keep this kind of search broad, using terms like career skills, professional skills, job searching, etc. Avoid full phrases like, "how to find a job" or "what skills do you need for a marketing analyst position".

Targeted research: Once you've narrowed down the skill(s) you'll focus on, try searching for articles and books specific to that skill. If you need to broaden your search (too few search results), play around with synonyms and other words/phrases that hint at the skill you've identified. If your results aren't targeted enough, be more specific with your skills or the strategies you'll recommend to develop them.

Search Tactics for Articles

SU Libraries offers a few different ways of searching for scholarly articles -- within SURF or within one of our 178 research databases. Whichever method you choose, follow the steps below to narrow your results to only articles from scholarly journals.

Research Databases (use this method for best results)

  1. Select your database (see some recommendations in the section, Library Databases with Scholarly Articles, below)
  2. Enter your keywords/search phrase (read the General Search Strategies page on this guide!)
  3. Use the search options or filters to check Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Articles/Journals. The exact wording will depend on the database.
  4. Narrow the publication date range (consider narrowing to the last 5-10 years). This may appear as a sliding tool or as empty fields you need to fill in with specific years.

SURF

When searching from the SURF box on the Libraries' Homepage:

  1. Select the "Articles" tab from the main search box
  2. Enter your search terms/phrase (read the General Search Strategies page on this guide!)
  3. Use the filters beneath the text field to check "Scholarly (Peer-Reviewed)"
  4. Search!
  5. On the results page, scroll down to the search filter for "Year" and choose an appropriate limit (such as "Last 10 years") to keep your results current

Rather than search across an entire database or discovery search, you can also browse for articles within a specific journal. Try these journals, or use subject keywords to discover a journal on your own. Whichever way you choose, try the two search methods outlined below.

Select Journals

Browse Journals

You can search journals by keyword/topic too. From the library homepage, in the SURF search box you can use the left side drop down menu to select journals. This will limit your search to only search for journal titles. From this search box you can select whether you want to limit your search to Scholarly (Peer-Reviewed) Journals and whether you want to limit your results to Print Journals we have physical copies of in the library, or Electronic Journals you can access online.

Online Articles

Once you find an article (whether through a database, a SURF search, or in a specific journal), you will see a few ways by which you can access the article immediately:

  • HTML Full Texticon used in databases for HTML Full Text
  • PDF Full Text (or a similar Get PDF option)icon used in databases for PDF Full Text
  • View at Publisher

When those options are not available, you may see the yellow find it button the yellow find it icon used in databases

The find it button will check other SU databases for the article or take you to an option to request the article via Interlibrary Loan (ILL). ILL requests are pretty fast, so I wouldn't recommend skipping this option if the article looks relevant to your needs!

Print Articles

You can search for journals from the Library Homepage by changing the drop down menu from "All Types" to "Journals." You can then change your search type to "Print Journals." If you need scholarly peer-reviewed sources you can also click on the option to "Include Peer-Reviewed Journals Only."

screen shot of the search box on the main library page with "Journal" selected from the drop down menu on the left side of the search box.

In most cases, the current year of the journal's issues will be kept in the Pit, the sunken area in the middle of the first floor of the library. Titles are filed alphabetically, and run clockwise starting near section closest to the service desks. Older issues are bound and located on the 3rd floor of the GAC. Again, they are filed alphabetically. Use the map below to find the Bound Journals location.

  • Current journals (current year) on 1st floor in "Pit". Listed alphabetically starting near the Circulation & Research Help Desks
  • Bound journals (roughly 1 year ago and older) on 3rd floor in compact, movable stacks. To access materials on a given stack (the library shelving unit), simply spin its crank to create an aisle. Check for people in other aisles first! This will move all stacks to the left or right of that stack, depending on the direction you move it.

If you are unsure how to approach your topic, try using Google to get a sense for any breaking news or trends concerning the issue you are researching. From there, dive into some of these resources to find reliable news articles about that topic.

Remember to avoid using sentences and long phrases when creating your search. Use keywords and boolean operators to get the most relevant results.

The library also has several subscriptions to news resources. You can visit our Virtual Newsrack to see a full listing of the periodicals you can access online through the library.

Newspapers

Magazines

Find Books and eBooks

Refer to the Search Strategies tab for brainstorming search terms. Keep your search broad to begin with (1-3 words that describe your topic). You can use the SURF (Salisbury University Resource Finder) search box below to search for books and eBooks. The default search will limit your results to books and eBooks in SU's collections, but you can change that by changing the drop down menu from SU Libraries to "UM System Libraries." This will broaden the search to include books in the University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions. You can also toggle the option in the left menu to "Include Non-USMAI Results." This will allow you to search books beyond SU and UM System Libraries that you may request be sent via Interlibrary Loans.

 

The default search using the box above will limit your results to books and eBooks in SU's collections, but you can change that by changing the drop down menu from SU Libraries to "UM System Libraries." This will broaden the search to include books in the University System of Maryland and Affiliated Institutions. You can also toggle the option in the left menu to "Include Non-USMAI Results." This will allow you to search books beyond SU and UM System Libraries that you may request be sent via Interlibrary Loans.

Screen shot of a search for "marketing and gen z." The drop down menu has "UM System Libraries" selected with an arrow pointing to this option which is circled. Also circled with an arrow pointing to the toggle is "Include Non-USMAI results."

 

If you find a physical book, it will have something called a call number. The call number is like its home address; it explains where the book "lives" in the library. You can copy and paste any call number into the Call Number Locator below to find its location in the library. 

A call number will look something like this: 

HD66 .S4849 2017

Use the call number locator map below to see what shelf the book is located on in the library.

If you would prefer to browse for books on a shelf, here are some recommended call number ranges for you.

HF 1416+ International marketing/exports

​HF 5410+ Marketing

  • HF 5415.1255 Branding
  • HF 5415.126 Direct marketing
  • HF 5415.127 Market segmentation. Target marketing.
  • HF 5415.129 Marketing channels.
  • HF 5415.13 - .157 Marketing management
  • HF 5415.2 Marketing research.
    • HF 5415.32+ Consumer behavior
    • HF 5415.335 Consumer satisfaction
  • HF 5415.55 Relationship marketing
  • HF 5416.5 Pricing 

HF 5438 Selling

HF 5801+ Advertising

Library Databases with Scholarly Articles

These are online resources, accessible on or off campus using your SU username and password.

Refer to the search strategies in this guide when using these databases.

When browsing search results, if the full-text of an article is not immediately available, use the yellow "Find It" button to see if we have access elsewhere. If we don't have access, you can still request it through InterLibrary Loan! 

Pro tip: You can actually search across multiple EBSCO databases (e.g., Business Source Complete, PsycINFO, and more) at once. To do so, open one of the EBSCO databases (e.g., Business Source Complete, PsycINFO) and click on "Choose Databases" (above the search fields). Select ones from this list that seem appropriate. Several newer ones are at the very bottom of the list. Don't select ALL databases, as it will seriously slow down the processor!