ACC 201 Principles of Financial Accounting - Souza

Important Accounting Journals to explore

Targeting content from specific journals can uncover articles of real value to your research.

This table provides a list of accounting professional & academic journals available through Library databases

Locate Company Financial Information Quickly

Online websites to track stock performance and find company analysis

Background Information & Newspapers

Google

Another place to search for needed information is simply to 'Google it.' Again, it is important to think about what results you are finding: Who is the author or sponsor, why is the information being published? Is there obvious bias? How authoritative is the source you find?

Google gives you so many results it is difficult to know which ones are useful or reliable. Articles rise to the top of a search based on the number of times they are clicked on; this might not be the best way to choose what will be most important for your search.

However, Google does allow several ways for you to target your results. If you implement some of the following techniques, you will find that you can leverage the power of Google to help you find solid results for your project. Try out some of the tips below.

Get the most out of your Google search -- SITE Searching

One way to target results in Google is to employ the site search. This requires you use a specific phrase before adding search terms to tell Google you only want results from a specific website or domain. The search always begins with site + colon + URL or Domain all without any spaces; next, add a space and insert your search terms. See the examples below - 

• site:nytimes.com 'artificial intelligence' accounting practices  This search phrase tells Google that you'd like results from the New York Times website that mention artificial intelligence as a phrase, and discuss accounting practices. **This is one of the best ways to search for articles on a given topic in the New York Times** Notice that we put artificial intelligence in quotes, to ensure that Google looks for the words as a phrase, not the individual words.
• site:gov accounting regulations covid  This search phrase tells Google you'd like to see articles, reports, etc., from government websites that include information about any regulations related to accounting that may have something to do with the COVID pandemic. You could add more terms, if you wanted to narrow or target the search still further. Or try the same search limiting the same search to the sec.gov site, for example.
• site:edu 'public accounting'  tech innovations   This search phrase tells Google to retrieve articles published by or in educational institutions about public accounting as a phrase and any related tech innovations. Note: You could insert a particular technology or industry name to narrow the results even further.
• site:pcaobus.org Enron scandal This search tells Google to search a specific website - in this case, The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board website - using the search terms: Enron scandal. 

Other search tips in Google

• Limit the date of your results by inserting the phrase after + colon + year or date  without any spaces
  • after:2016 Corporate accounting regulations   This phrase tells Google that you'd like all your results to have been published after 2016 (note: the after phrase can come before or after your search terms)
  • You can also limit your results to a given date range by clicking on Tools under the search bar, and then Any Time under that, then selecting from the drop down or inserting a custom date range.
• Search for an exact phrase by putting your terms in quotes when entering them in the search bar, e.g., "fixed assets valuation" -- using the quotes will ensure you retrieve results with that exact phrase.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a great place to search for articles about your topic. Google Scholar includes scholarly article content, as well as chapters from authoritative books and reports. Google Scholar is a great place to search when you are not having luck in the databases. It is more forgiving, and often can help find relevant articles important to your research. After finding some articles in Scholar, you can discover how the subject matter is discussed, and revisit the databases armed with some good information and powerful search terms.

Keep in mind that full text may not always be available from Google Scholar; if you have enough time, articles that do not have accompanying full text may be requested through Interlibrary Loan.