Skip to Main Content

Assignment | Proposal Essay with Research (Vasconcelos): Organizations

ENGL 1301 | Prof. M. Vasconcelos (Fall 2023)

From the Assignment

This institution can be a government agency (IRS, Medicare, the Food and Drug Administration, etc), a corporation (IBM, USAA, etc), a school district, a city department, a national restaurant chain, a hospital system, or other company/agency.

Note: This page is absolutely not an exhaustive set of resources or strategies. It's just a few starting points. Where and how you look will depend on your topic and organization!

Discovering Relevant Organizations for a Topic

How the Entity Operates

  • Look for "About" pages on the website.
  • Look for annual reports from the company.
    • Some companies have a separate website for things like this, apart from their normal/primary site.
  • News articles reporting on the company/entity

 

Note: if you're looking at a business, it may be difficult to find info on their inner workings if they're privately traded. Public corporations have certain requirements for transparency that make them a LOT easier to research.

Google Smarter

Once you've identified the site(s) for your institution, you can use the domain search trick on Google to zero in on relevant information about them. Just add to your search terms site: and whatever the domain is. Try out the example below to see it in action!

Google Web Search