Q. How can I research the impact of a religion on the economy or society?

 The steps below should help you get started with this interesting research topic:

Step One: Find background information

When searching for articles that discuss the economic impact of a religion, it is helpful to first understand the ways in which religion can impact consumer behavior. To find relevant background information, try some general web searches.  Here are some example keyword combinations that should bring you sources that give a broad overview of the topic:

• religion AND “economic impact”
• religion AND “consumer behavior”
• religion AND “financial impact”
• religion AND “socioeconomic impact”

A note about keywords: combining terms with Boolean operators like AND can help focus your results and phrase searching is a terrific way to pinpoint exact phrases.
 

Step Two: Identify good keywords to search with in the library

As you browse the websites, etc. in your results, make sure that you choose credible websites or articles.  Your goal, as you skim each one, will be to gather ideas about the more specific aspects of this topic that you would like to research more deeply, and make a list of good search terms. For example, take note of:

• The kinds of consumer, organizational and/or corporate behaviors that are affected by religious practices and beliefs (festival/holiday spending, gender roles, dietary restrictions, charitable giving, church/mosque/temple activities, religious-based organization activities, manufacture/sale of specialized food/clothing/products, etc.)
   
• The economic indicators or financial data being referenced (industry reports, SEC filings, survey results, etc.). Not sure what economic indicators are? This overview from the World Bank may help.
   
• How are religious activities and festivals referred to by those that practice them? Are there alternative spellings (like Chanukah vs. Hannukah) or different names (Holi vs. Dolyatra, for example)?

Hopefully, you will soon find a particular religion-related behavior that you would like to investigate more deeply. Before you search the library, make a list of keywords from the terms that you found in your background research, and make sure you add one or two keywords to pinpoint the financial data that you need.  Learn more about choosing effective keywords.
 

Step Three: Search the library

Now that you have some more specific topics in mind – a particular religion or religious festival, a specific industry or country, a particular consumer, organizational or corporate behavior, etc. -- you can search the library using the keywords that you discovered in step 2. 
 

Where should you search?

• The Everything search box on the library’s homepage is a good place to start, because it searches all our subscription databases at once.  See a short demo video of the Everything search.
   
• If you don’t find what you need in the Everything search, visit the Business subject page and try the ABI/INFORM Collection (ProQuest) database. It is specific to all things business and includes a lot of good economic/financial data. See ABI/INFORM search tips from ProQuest.
   

Example search:

In countries with a large Christian population, increased consumer spending during the weeks leading up to the Christmas holiday is known to give the economy a boost. From my background search, I decided that I was most interested in how consumer spending impacts the retail industry in the United States.

So, I will try several different keyword combinations in the Everything search box, making sure to include terms that will bring results with some kind of economic indicator or financial data:

• Christmas AND “consumer spending” AND retail AND GDP AND “United States”
• Christmas AND retail AND "industry report" AND “United States”

These search terms bring relevant results, including lots of articles from scholarly journals and professional magazines.

The same searches in the ABI/INFORM Collection will also bring good results.  Because ABI/INFORM is business-specific, its results will include financial reports that may cover more than one industry or market. Don’t rely on item titles alone to judge whether something is relevant. You may need to open them up and skim their contents (or search inside their full text) for the specific information that you have in mind. 

Vary your keywords as you search! In step 2, you gathered a lot of good potential keywords to search with, but you will need to keep an eye out for new ones as you browse your search results. When I searched for the example topic above, I noticed that the phrase "holiday spending” was used by a lot of authors who were discussing Christmas retail trends. When I tried swapping “holiday” for “Christmas” in my searches, I found several new sources.