Ask Your Librarian
Librarians are monitoring the Ask Your Librarian discussion thread in the unit site. Please post your questions in there if you need assistance in navigating the resources.
Sharon Chua (Melbourne Burwood)
sharonc@deakin.edu.au
Eddie Pavuna (Geelong Waterfront + Warrnambool)
e.pavuna@deakin.edu.au
EDLM
You are required to do assessment 1 Essential Digital Literacy Module (EDLM) before assessment two. Why do the EDL? This is because you will need to be able to know how to do research and become familiar with a range of databases.
The EDLM will enable you conduct a smarter search using a range of relevant resources that can be used for assessments in MMK101 Marketing Fundamentals and throughout your studies at Deakin.
Please post questions regarding the EDLM in assessment 1 - EDLM discussion forum or contact digital.literacy.bl@deakin.edu.au
MMK101 Fundamentals of Marketing
This guide is designed to help you find resources for the assessment. You would already be familiar with some databases from the Essential Digital Module (EDLM) such as Passport and IBISWorld. To further supplement and use quality resources to support your research, look at tips on using the Advanced Search to locate journal articles, newspaper/media articles and company information/data.
Planning your search
Before you begin looking for resources for your assessment or research, invest some time planning your search strategy. Spending a small amount of time now will save you time and frustration later. Your research will require you to use a range of resources to identify the market consumer segments, apply product differentiation and production positioning principles to build up a consumer profile.
Marketing theories and conceps
What have you learnt in MMK101? Look at your textbook, study notes and assessment brief to find them. These marketing principles and theories are fundamental in MMK101. They form the keywords or main concepts in your research and can help you build your search strategy.
Identify the product concepts
Now THINK! What is the company selling? What is the product or business? What are their values and philosophy? You can't formulate a marketing plan or consumer profile if you don’t know the product or company! Look at the assessment brief and company website. Product/company knowledge can help you build your search strategy and set parameters.
Similar keywords
Use similar keywords. These can be synonyms, related words, abbreviations, acronyms and other words that are specific to your topic. For example,
- consumer attitudes can also mean consumer beliefs
- social marketing can also mean ethical marketing
To discover synonyms, refer to a thesaurus (such as https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus) and see what other words could be used.
Join your keywords with AND, OR
Use AND to combine keywords with different meanings
"consumer behaviour" AND "wearable technology"
Use OR to combine keywords with the same meaning
"consumer attitudes" OR "consumer beliefs"
Combine AND, OR
"marketing strategy" AND (purchasing power OR purchasing ability
Library Advanced Search
Use Advanced Search to combine marketing and product keywords and concepts. This search covers 80% of our databases. Use the predictive text function to see more potential keywords, themes and concepts you may not have thought about to assist you further! See Search Strategies and Tips
About Library Advance Search
Predictive text function
Suggests potential keywords, themes and concepts you may not have thought of
Create search strings
Enables you to use AND, OR
- Use AND to combine keywords/concepts that have different meaning
- Use OR to combine keywords/concepts that have the same meaning
- Use quote marks to search the exact phrase
Filter search results
Limit your search results to peer review (academic) articles by ticking the Scholarly (Peer reviewed) journals, selecting a more current date.
If you want everything, leave the box All Results ticked.
About peer review articles
Why must I use peer review academic articles?
This assessment requires the use of peer review academic articles. These articles are an excellent way to support your argument within an assessment. Work created by, and evaluated by, academics using a transparent method and accessible data set is often of a very high quality and is a powerful tool to use to support an opinion. Unless indicated, it is important that you use primarily academic sources for your university assessments.
What are peer review academic articles?
They have been through a formal review process prior to publication to ensure they are academic in nature and meet specific criteria. Their aim is to inform or report research to a scholarly audience, and therefore tend to use technical language. They contain an abstract along with a list of references or other readings.
How do I know an article is peer reviewed?
Here are some tips to help you identify a peer reviewed journal:
- These journals will always include a statement to identify themselves
- Most databases have a search option to limit the search results to peer reviewed /refereed / scholarly articles
- Look for information about the journal when searching databases
- Still in doubt? Find out more information on the journal by going to the journal's website
Tips and examples of peer review articles
To give you an idea of what peer review articles are, here are a couple of examples:
Sparks, BA, Perkins, HE & Buckley, R 2013, 'Online travel reviews as persuasive communication: The effects of content type, source, and certification logos on consumer behavior', Tourism Management, vol. 39, pp. 1-9.
Ho, C-W 2017, 'Does practicing CSR makes consumers like your shop more? Consumer-Retailer love mediates CSR and behavioral intentions', International Journal Of Environmental Research And Public Health, vol. 14, no. 12.
*Do not focus only on finding articles about the industry or product. Marketing principles are always applicable regardless of industry/product if you get your context right!
Tips on finding peer reviewed journal articles.
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Use Library Advanced Search
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Check the reference list of the peer reviewed article you have found.
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Your textbook. At the end of every chapter is a reference list. There could be peer reviewed articles in there.
Related Links
Key resources
You may already be familiar with some databases from the Essential Digital Module (EDLM) But that's not the only ones you will use.
To show evidence of an analytical and critical approach to your assessment, you need to use a wide range of appropriate information sources.
Can I use other types of information?
You can use any type of information you want. What is important that you support your assessment with credible and high quality information. A newspaper article has more merit than Wikipedia. A marketing magazine article is more credible than an opinion piece from a personal blog. Peer reviewed journal articles would be more well regarded than newspaper or magazine articles. Most importantly, you must follow the assessment instructions.
Books 
Journal Articles 
Magazine and Newspaper Articles
Research Data & Statistics 
Movies/Videos 
Audio recording
How do you determine the quality of information?
It could be a peer reviewed (academic) article, newspaper article, or a magazine article. Ask yourself. Is it relevant? Is it reliable? Use the checklistfor evaluating information sources to decide whether or not it is worth including in your assessment or if it's really crap! Is the information you found of good quality?
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Video: Evaluating information sources (02:16)
Is the information you found of good quality? Watch the video Evaluating Information Sources (02:16)