Question

I need an article about an event that occurred on 15 May 1997, when the government of Kuwait decided to sell its 170 million shares of BP Petroleum.

Details

More than one article if at all possible

Answered By: Trustee Library
Last Updated: Sep 02, 2020     Views: 33


Since you are a student in the graduate business program, the best place to start for this topic is the Business LibGuide, located at http://libguides.brenau.edu/business. 
 
 
Click on the yellow tab for International Business. In the center of the page, you'll see a list of business databases where you can search for your topic. All are good choices with excellent collections, but I suggest starting with the database ABI/INFORM Complete. Click on the link to  ABI/INFORM Complete and enter your Brenau username and password. You'll arrive at the main search page.
 
 
Enter your first search: try the whole term kuwait AND (BP OR "British Petroleum") AND sell. You'll note a few things about this search term.
 
 
#1, the conjunction AND is placed between the different terms you are searching for. This is a Boolean search technique that tells the search engine that you only want articles with ALL of these elements in it, not just one or two. (Imagine having to look through all the articles on Kuwait just to find the ones that mention BP or selling shares!)
 
#2, we included OR in between the terms BP and "British Petroleum", which is another Boolean search technique. It tells the search engine that we will take articles that use either the name BP or British Petroleum since they are actually the same thing. If we searched for only BP, we would miss any articles that describe the company as British Petroleum.
 
#3, "British Petroleum" is in quotation marks. These tell the search engine to keep those words together, so it won't return articles that mention British in one sentence and Petroleum in another - we want the entire phrase!
 
When you arrive at your results, you can make adjustments to which results are shown by using the options on the right side of the results page. For example, if you want articles from the time the transaction took place, use the Publication Date limiter on the right of the results page to limit your results from perhaps 1996-1998 (to include articles leading up to the transaction on 15 May 1997 and the aftermath of it). If you want to view the transaction in a more historical perspective, try leaving the search broad so you will find articles about it that were published much later.
 
In ABI/INFORM Complete, you'll find results like this one below:
McGeehan, P. (1997, May 15). Kuwait to sell over $2 billion of stock in BP. Wall Street Journal, pp. B.16-B, 16:1.

After reviewing your article results from the first search, try more versions of your search that might give you more material to work with - for example, you may want to look for Kuwait AND (BP OR "British Petroleum") from a date range of 1994-1997 to find more information on the situation and events between them leading up to the sale. 

When you are done with the first database, try these same searches in another of the business databases in the LibGuide list. Each database has a unique collection, so keep trying different databases if you are not satisfied with your results - you may find additional articles in one database that were not available in the other.

If you are looking for newspaper articles, LexisNexis Academic is a particularly good resource. Use their Advanced Search option to run your search for the desired dates to retrieve a variety of newspaper items on the topic. 

If you need more, respond and let us know!

 

Links & Files

FAQ Actions

Related Questions