CAFF Consumer Affairs Course Guides & Subject Guide

CAFF 226 Consumer Life Skills

Consumer Behavior / Issue Article Search 

• Find Scholarly, or Trade Journal Articles. Trade journals are dedicated to a specific industry or profession and cover news, trends, developments, and issues relevant to that industry.

• Start Broadly: Begin with a broad search to find articles about consumer behavior or issues.
• Search Strategy: First, try OneSearch.
• Sample Search: [brand loyalty AND corporate citizenship] to find materials related to how consumer loyalty is affected by a company's commitment to ethical business practices, and social responsibility.
• Next, enhance your search precision by doing the following: 
  • Use quotation marks for phrases (2 or more words)
    • "Brand Loyalty AND "corporate citizenship"
  • Use synonyms, grouped inside parentheses with OR between them
    • "Brand Loyalty AND ("corporate citizenship" OR "corporate social responsibility" OR CSR)
• Next, use the filters on the left side of the results 
  • Source Type 
  • Publication Date 
  • Subject - select the subjects directly relevant to your area of interest.
  • Peer Reviewed 

Apply the search strategy from above to these:

Find Consumer alerts, current issues, scams, or fraud

An easy Google search to find government information on almost any topic is to enter the word or phrase that describes the topic, followed by a colon, then .gov  [TOPIC]:.gov

Google Search Alerts & Scams Examples: 

Online shopping scams:.gov

Consumer alerts:.gov

Cryptocurrency scams:.gov

Impersonation scams:.gov

Search for Related Data and Information

Evaluate Online Resources

1. Purpose: Consider the purpose of the website. Is it for commercial gain, entertainment, or providing information?

2. Check the URL: Examine the domain name extension (e.g., .gov, .edu, .org, .com) to determine the origin of the page.

3. Author's Authority: Assess the credibility of the information by checking the author's qualifications and expertise. Look for contact information or background details.

4. Date of Creation and Updates: Look for creation and last update dates to gauge the relevance and currency of the information.

Watch the tutorial: Evaluating Online Resources

Watch the video tutorial "The CRAP Test for Evaluating Websites"