ENG 2150: Writing II - Prof. Nikolic

Finding Overviews and Profiles

Filings:

Both nonprofits and publicly-held companies are required to file detailed reports about their financial activity.

  • Corporations have annual filings called 10K's which they file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These filings are updated quarterly (in 10Q filings). Additional filings must be submitted to the SEC when there are specific events during the course of the year. Thugh 10Ks can be very detailed, there are sections that can be browsed to get a sense of current conditions within the company. Two sections of interest may be Part I, Item 1 - Business, Part 1, Item 1A - Risk Factors and Part II, Item 7 - Management Discussion and Analysis.
  • Nonprofits are required to file annual IRS tax filings called 990's. These provide detailed financial information. Part I, Section 1 and Part III both provide information on the organization and its mission and accomplishments.

Encyclopedias and Directories

International Directory of Company Histories provides a fairly detailed overview of the story of many companies. See the Company tab for access to the database called Business Insights, where you can read this directory's entries. NOTE:This source also has the histories of many large nonprofits.

Gale eBooks is a database that provides the full text of hundreds of specialized encyclopedias.Search here for histories of nonprofits also.

Books

Because of the nature of some of Baruch's curriculum, the Library has an extensive collection of books on companies and organizations. This includes books on the history of those entities as well as books on specific issues experienced by them. Check our catalog by

  • clicking on "Books (Print and eBooks) from the "Define Your Search bar on our homepage.
  • Click "advanced search".
  • Search by name of entity and use terms like: history, etc.
  • Limit the results to books only. eBooks will be available with a click on the green "available online" link.
  • Records of all other books will contain a call number (the address where the book lives on the shelf) and location information.

Finding information about issues or events

Use the articles database to search for aspects or analysis of events of your chosen entity. Searching these databases allows precision.

These are numerous sources of articles and each has its own advantages.

Newspapers - Report on current events. Articles are updated regularly and provide facts with some background. Example:

Labor Official Recommends s Amazon Union Victory in New York Be Upheld. WSJ 9/2/2022

Magazines: - Report on current events or issues with some more background information and a bit of analysis. Example:

SCHWAB, T. (2021). Can Philanthropy Ever Be Decolonized? Nation, 313(8), 16–19. While it remains to be seen how Doctors Without Borders responds to the charges, the unfolding conflict brings into focus the colonialist premises that underpin the work of many leading institutions, including the most powerful - and perhaps the least diverse - actor in global health and philanthropy: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation's funds overwhelmingly go to recipients in the wealthiest, whitest nations: the United States, Canada, Australia, and European countries. FEATURES OVER THE LAST YEAR, DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS HAS FACED A MAJOR scandal, as more than 1,000 current and former employees signed on to a letter accusing the Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian organization of institutional racism, citing a colonial mentality in how the group's European managers view the developing world. The blind spots of this leadership became fatally apparent during the pandemic, when the Gates Foundation positioned itself at the center of the global effort to deliver Covid vaccines to poor nations.

Trade and Business Magazines: Continuous, in-depth reporting on an industry and the companies/organizations within that industry. Example:

Tesla reportedly tracks workers’ office attendance. (2022). Automotive News, 96(7045), 31.

Academic Journals: research into the event and extrapolate a theory or thesis or argument based upon the facts.Original research results/reports; reviews of research (review articles); Articles aren’t written by journalists, but by experts and scholars in the field. In academic publishing, the goal of peer review is to assess the quality of articles submitted for publication in a scholarly journal. Before an article is deemed appropriate to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, it must undergo a rigorous publication process. Example:

Greenberg, D. S., & Greenberg, D. S. (2001). Blood, politics, and the American Red Cross. Lancet, 358(9295), 1789. https://doi-org.remote.baruch.cuny.edu/10.1016/S0140-6736(01)06854-4

Case Studies: Provide detailed analysis and information about a specific event or issue concerning an entity.

Levy, E., Wellen, R., & McKendree, A. G., (2018). The United States olympic committee: Protecting their girls or the gold? (A). In SAGE Business Cases. SAGE Publications, Ltd.

Clancy, M., (2001). Sweating the swoosh: Nike, the globalization of sneakers, and the question on sweatshop labor. In SAGE Business Cases. SAGE Publications, Ltd.,

 

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Peggy Teich
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The Journalist's Resource - Covering nonprofits: Questions, answers and tips for following the money