Tips and Practice for Finding and Using
Tax Information on the Internet

1. Introduction

2. Basics of 
Information Analysis
Preliminaries

Basic Information Analysis - A Review

Information Analysis - Internet Considerations

From Raw Data to Useful Report

3. Practice Exercise
Research Topic
Research Steps
Step 1: State the question(s) for which you are seeking information.
Step 2: Conduct a broad search.
Step 3: Conduct a more focused search.
Step 4: Explore and critique the relevant sites found by the search engines.
Step 5: Complete the research.

4. Tax Research on the Internet
Words of Advice
Tax  Links

5. Summary
Recap
Comments?
Test Your New Knowledge!
For More Information

Professor Nellen
College of Business
San José State University

Module 2 - Basics of Information Analysis

Garbage in, garbage out.  If you do not carefully analyze the information you find in completing a research project, your results will be mostly worthless. The Practice Exercise (Module 3) provides guidance on how to find information on the Internet. Once it is found, it must be analyzed before using it. The Internet has expanded the list of factors to consider in analyzing information; the techniques in use prior to access to the Internet must still be considered. Thus, if you have been a successful researcher in the library, you have a good start to being a successful researcher on the Internet.

Preliminaries

Before analyzing information you need to,

• Focus: Formulate your research question or topic so you can best focus your research efforts. A good understanding of your question/topic will enable you to identify the types of information sources that will be useful, where to search, and what words to use in structuring your searches.

• Get organized: Identify how you will organize your search results and notes. Considering this step in advance will enable you to label or sort the data you find once you begin your information search.

Basic Information Analysis - A Review

In analyzing the information, you are critiquing it to determine if it is an appropriate source of information to use in your research. The analysis will help you determine the relevance and reliability of the information prior to using it in your research.

• Relevance: Some questions to consider here include,

  • Is the information related to your research topic? 

  • Is it objective or subjective information? 

  • Is it a primary authority (such as information from the government or original research or writings from the creator of the information) or secondary authority (someone's explanation of primary authority)? 

  • How detailed is the information? Is there enough information or are additional sources needed?

  • Who appears to be the intended audience of the information?

   

• Reliability: Some questions to consider here include,

  • How current is the information? How current does it need to be?

  • Who created the information and how reliable is the creator? Is there information provided on the author?

  • Is it objective or subjective information?

  • What is the purpose of the information (why was it created)?

  • How complete is the information? 

  • Is the information presented in a logical manner?

  • Is there a bibliography? Are there footnotes?

Information Analysis - Internet Considerations

Described below is an approach to analyzing information found on the Internet, that encompasses the relevance and reliability considerations described above. These questions should be considered for all of the web sites you find in researching your topic. 

• Who?  
  Who created the site? Does the site include the credentials of the author and information on the sponsor of the web site? You may also find information by backward searching (described in Module 3) to find other web sites that have links to the page and by conducting a search using the name of the sponsor or author.

• What?  
  What is the information - an editorial, news, a government report, an ad, etc. Is this the type of information you need? How complete is the information? How reliable does the page appear - are there spelling and grammar errors or factual errors? Is the information well-organized? Are the original source documents for data noted?

• Where?  
  Where is the information located? Often, search engines take you to a page that is embedded within a site so that it is not simple to tell the context of the information or the author or sponsor of the information. Usually, you can shrink back the URL to find the main page (for example, change http://www.cob.sjsu.edu/nellen_a/e-links.html to http://www.cob.sjsu.edu/nellen_a/).

• Why?  
  Why was the page created - what is its purpose? Is the sponsor selling something or trying to get readers to sign a petition or join a contest? Is it serving a political purpose? Usually, finding information about the author or sponsor of the page will answer this question. 

• When?  
  When was the page last updated? How current is the information?

• Why not?  
  Use the answers to the first five questions to critique the information. How relevant and reliable is the information? For what reasons, if any, might you not want to rely on it or to limit its use in your research?

• What else?  
  What is missing after completing the first round of your web search (Steps 2 - 4 in Module 3)? If you did not find primary authority, consider where you could find such information. For example, perhaps you need to search relevant government sites to get your data. Perhaps you should search company web sites to obtain the information. Check the links in pages you found and conduct a backward search to find additional sites that may pertain to your topic. Also, not all information is on the Internet, you may still need to make a trip to the library. In addition, some information, while on the Internet, is only available to paid subscribers. A trip to the library to review the available databases may prove useful. 

From Raw Data to Useful Report

• Study each piece of usable information to the point where you understand it well enough to be able to explain it to someone else.

• Synthesize and organize the information so that you can write about it in a logical manner.

• Be sure you have a good outline of what you plan to write.

• Write your document; be sure to include footnotes and bibliography/reference list.

NEXT - Module 3 - Practice Exercise