Foster Business Library Databases:

The Foster Business Library offers an extensive collection of over fifty databases on its homepage; see under Databases. For a complete list of Foster databases, see the List of All Business Databases. Access to these databases from off campus requires that you first go to the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. These resources may not be accessed from off campus except by those with a valid UW Net ID and password. For more information on Foster business databases, click Databases, A-Z. For information on which Foster business databases to use, see the Database Index. For information on accessing Foster databases from off campus, see Database Access. For guidelines on responsible database usage, see Database Usage.
• Hoovers Online:   Under Business Databases on the Foster Business Library homepage. Hoovers Online offers information about 14,000 public and private companies worldwide, with links to company homepages and annual reports, charts, company capsule, competitors, divisions, earnings, financials, Fortune and Forbes rankings, history, industry information, insider trading, mission statements, news links, press releases, officers, patents, products, SEC filings, splits, subsidiaries, etc.

  This database includes Hoovers Online Company Fact Sheets for over 14,000 companies as well as longer Company Overviews for a smaller number of companies and organizations. Scroll down the company capsule to News & Commentary for a hotlink to the company's press releases. There is also, under the company address near the top of the company capsule, a link to the company's homepage where company history, mission statement, values statement and other examples of business writing may be found.

• Lexis-Nexis Academic:   To find company information, go to Business and then to Company Financial where you can obtain financial and other data by for companies. Information is available from twenty different sources. SEC filings, particularly company 10K annual reports, are a particularly rich source of company as well as industry information. Use your browser's Find command (or Control-F) to locate references to particular terms of interest in 10K filings such as trends, strategy, competitors, industry, etc.

  Go to Business and then to SEC Filings & Reports for examples of companies' 10-K and other Securities & Exchange Commission filings.

Unlike library databases, Web resources are available wherever you have web access; they do not require that you access them via the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. When using web resources, be sure to evaluate the credibility of these resources. For a subject index to web resources, see Business Resources on the Web on the Foster Business Library homepage.
• Business Writing Center (University of Washington Business School):   This center has been located in the southeast corner of the Foster Business Library since June 2006, offering "free consultations on business class writing assignments, cover letters, and résumés. When you come to the Center, you will work with an advanced business student trained in critiquing drafts and coaching writers." See their Business Documents, Citation Formats, Grammar & Style, and Online Resources.

• Memos (The Writing Center at Rensselaer):   This brief web handout covers memo format, content, style, and some references.

• Brief Guide to Business Writing:   This longer guide from two professors in the Department of Management and Organizations at the University of Iowa includes document guidelines, paragraph and sentence guidelines, the writing process, a sample business letter, a sample memo, a sample e-mail, word choice, reading resources, and a writing checklist.

• Business Writing Practical Applications:   Written for a course in 2000 in Written Business Communication at Harrisburg Area Community College, this student-created page provides a brief outline and format for a business memo, a cover letter, a resume, a proposal, references, plus some web links and MLA formats.

Foster Business Library Reference Collection:

The Foster Business Library Reference Collection consists of business handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other quick reference tools. It is located behind the Reference Desk in Foster, arranged by call number. Reference materials cannot be checked out; they may only be used in the library.
• Perfect phrases for managers and supervisors.
  This small paperback is subtitled "hundreds of ready-to-use phrases for any management situation." It covers mission and values statements, interviews, orientations, delegation, goal setting, coaching employees, performance problems, meetings, body language, tone of voice, etc.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD31 .R85 2005.

• Gold nuggets galore: how to behave in business: sayings to help you succeed.
  This small book is organized around topics, such as business conduct, communication (oral and written), performance, and management, with sayings as the basis for the essays in each section.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5389 .H35 2005.

• The complete human resources writing guide.
  This manual for effective writing in human resources includes writing style and tone, writing pitfalls, structure, format and design, and samples of such writing as for recruiting, employment interviewing, new employees, performance management, employee services, and employee handbooks and manuals.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5549.5 .C6 .A75 1997.

• How to say it for executives: the complete guide to communication for leaders.
  This paperback is aimed at leaders and how they can best communicate, orally and nonverbally, through speaking and presentations, business writing, meetings, and personal behaviors.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5718 .M549 2005.

• The writer's guide to corporate communications.
  This volume covers sales meetings, audiovisual communications, corporate videos, speech writing, printed materials, press releases, product brochures, mission statements, writing for the web, etc.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5718 .M648 1997.

• Guide to managerial communication: effective business writing and speaking.
  Communications strategy, composition, macro and micro issues, verbal structure, visual aids, nonverbal skills, grammar, usage, formats for memos, reports, letters, etc.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5718 .M86 2000.

• The New York Times guide to business communications.
  Over twenty essays on business communications, electronic mail, e-mail etiquette, legal and ethical issues, persuasion, career communication, etc.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5718.3 .G843 2001.

• Write up the corporate ladder: successful writers reveal the techniques that help you write with ease and get ahead.
  The author shares his "plan then write" method, as well as the secrets that made successes of some of today's top business writers, plus insights on the importance of writing on the job, from authorities working at top corporations.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5718.3 .R9 2003.

• The manager's guide to business writing.
  Structure, formats, visuals, tough situations, persuasion, reports, top ten tips, writing basics.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5718.3 .S68 1999.

• Rules of thumb for business writers.
  This paperback is aimed to help business writers with tips for letters, resumes, agendas, newsletters, proposals, e-mail, PowerPoint, covering grammar, presentation tips, research, etc.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5718.3 .W54 2005.

• Perfect phrases for business proposals and business plans.
  This paperback's subtitle is:   "hundreds of ready-to-use phrases for winning new clients, launching new products, and getting the funding you need."
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5718.5 .D43 20056

• Writing effective letters, memos, & e-mail.
  This small paperback covers style, layouts, conventions, reports, proposals, and business plans, and writing for sensitive situations, with appendices that include a quick guide to grammar and pronunciation, and converting written documents to oral presentations.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5721 .B483 2004.

• The ultimate book of business letters.
  This paperback, from Entrepreneur magazine, is set up to allow you to customize letters, memos, emails, and presentations, based on an accompanying CD-ROM (available at the Foster circulation desk) The CD-ROM includes over 1,000 letters and memos.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5721 .K54 2007.

• The AMA style guide for business writing
  Grammar, usage, electronic mail, charts, budgets, memos, sample financial and budget reports, letters, planning documents, style tips, format, etc.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5726 .A49 1996.

• The manager's portfolio of model memos for every occasion.
  More than 800 sample memos for every occasion.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5726 .B237 1996.

• Business letters ready to go.
  Sales orders, thank you letters, complaints, policies, letters to employees, personnel letters, recruiting, reprimands, layoff notices, letters to shareholders, etc.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5726 .B29 1998.

• 300+ hundred successful business letters for all occasions.
  This Barrons' publication provices examples of letters of inquiry, congratulations, announcements, minutes, reports and proposals, orders, job correspondence, press releases, letters to shareholders, letters of sympathy and condolence, etc.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5726 .B67 2005.

• Cyberstyle: the writer's complete desk reference.
  Punctuation, hyphenating, capitalization, number formats, grammar and usage, abbreviations, words often confused or misused, proofreading and editing, using the internet, electronic messaging, address format, business letters and memos, reports and other business documents, employment applications, etc.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5726 .C55 2001.

• The Prentice Hall complete book of model letters, memos, and forms for secretaries.
  Requests and inquiries, reservations and orders, acknowledgment letters, reminders, appointment letters, introductions and recommendations, employees, appreciation and goodwill, social-business messages, complaints and adjustments, credit and collection, sales promotion, memos, announcements, press releases, forms, letters and memos.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5726 .D479 1993.

• The AMA handbook of business letters.
  Planning the letter, components of an effective letter, letter structure, letter appearance, grammar and usage, word processing, numerous sample letters: sales and marketing, customer service, credit and collection, letters to vendors, personnel letters, confirmation letters, requests, replies, permissions, social, personal, etc.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5726 .S42 1996.

• Business writing handbook.
  This Webster's New World handbook covers the fundamentals of business writing, the principles of procedure writing, writing letters and memos (with many samples), writing proposals, reports, e-mails, preparing presentations, and an appendix on the mechanics of writing.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5726 .W76 2002.

• Models of proposal planning & writing.
  How to craft persuasive proposals, including the complete grant application, letter of intent, and full proposal, with exampoles of proposals to two foundations and one U.S. government agency.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG177.5 .U6 .M558 2005.

• MLA handbook for writers of research papers.
  The Modern Language Association's style book is one of the bibles for writers of research papers, covering every aspect of research writing, from choice of topic to submission of the completed paper, with numerous writing style tips and examples. This new edition includes documentation of online research.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: LB2369 .G53 2003.

• Roget's descriptive word finder: a dictionary.
  This book is a combination dictionary and thesaurus for describing people, places and things with adjectives and adverbs, in over 500 categories, in an A to Z format.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: PE1591 .K544 2003.

• The Wall Street Journal guide to business style and usage.
  This handbook is an updated and expanded version of the style guide used by the business writers at the Wall Street Journal, with over 3,800 alphabetized entries, covering concepts, definitions, business and financial terms, technical terms, and more.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: PN4783 .W26 2002.

• Webster's New World business writing handbook.
  This paperback covers business writing fundamentals, principles of procedure writing, letters and memos (with numerous examples), proposals, reports, e-mail, presentations, and an appendix on the mechanics of writing.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: PN4783 .W76 2002.

• Technical writing: essentials for the successful professional.
  This paperback covers letters, memos, e-mails, advertising materials, annual reports, manuals, research, and presentation essentials for business as well as technical writers.
  Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: T11 .I23 2003.

The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of over 70,000 books on all business topics. To search for materials on all three campuses of the University of Washington, go to the UW Libraries Catalog, in the upper left corner of the Foster Business Library homepage. Search by keyword, title, author, series, etc.

To limit the results of your search just to materials in the Foster Business Library collection, use the Modify or Limit options at the top of the search results and change the library location to Foster Business Library. Availablity is indicated on the right of each online catalog record. First, note in which collection, within Foster, your materials are in, since the library has ten different Collections, each in a different location and often with differing arrangements. "Available" indicates that the book should be on the shelves under that call number and available for you to check out. "Due" and a date indicates that the book is already checked out to someone and is due back on the date indicated; you can have the "Request/Place Hold" feature to recall the book for your use.

If the material you want is not in the collections of the University of Washington, you can use the "Search Summit" feature to repeat your search in the combined holdings of over thirty cooperating libraries in Washington and Oregon. Use the "Request This Item" feature in Summit to have books in those library sent here to Foster for you to check out.

The Foster general stacks collection is located south of the main part of the Foster Business Library, through the two pass-throughs into the basement of Balmer. The arrangement is by call number, from A (at the east end, near the Copy Center) to Z (at the far west end).

Click on the subject headings below for lists of books on these subjects in the Foster Business Library. Most of the books in these subjects appear to be clustered around the call numbers HF5718 to HF5726.

• Business Writing
• Business Communication
• Business Report Writing
• Communication in Accounting
• Corporation Reports
• Financial Statements – United States
• Proposal Writing In Business
• Commercial Correspondence
• Persuasion (Rhetoric)

Examples of books on these subjects, in the Foster Business Library, include:

• Writing proposals   (2008)
• Writing white papers: how to capture readers and keep them engaged   (2007)
• Power tools for business writing   (2006)
• The business writer's companion   (2005)
• Powerful proposals: how to give your business the winning edge   (2005)
• Write to the top: writing for corporate success   (2004)
• Effective writing: a handbook for accountants   (2003)
• The accountant's guide to professional communication   (2000)

The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of several thousand annual reports for hundreds of U.S. and foreign companies. These reports are filed in lateral filing cabinets near the Foster Reference desk under the sign Corporate Annual Reports. Annual reports for companies in an industry can be a valuable source of information about the industry itself. For a list of all the companies in the collection, see the library's Corporate Annual Reports Collection. For an index to corporate annual reports in the collection by industry sector, see the Annual Reports Industry Sector Index. For an index to companies in the collection with headquarters outside the U.S., see Corporate Annual Reports Headquarters Index.

This collection includes thousands of annual reports from over 800 companies, in the U.S. and abroad, each of them an example of business writing for a wide audience of shareholders. The list is annotated for annual reports of particular excellence in writing and presentation; look for years in red for annual reports that have been cited as excellent examples of annual report writing and presentation for that year.

The Foster Business Library Periodicals Collection includes these titles:

• Business communication quarterly, v.58-  (Mar. 1995-)
• Business communications review, v.16-  (1986-)  Incomplete v.24.
• Journal of business communication (1973-), v.11-   (Fall 1973-)
• Management communication quarterly : MCQ, v.1- (Aug.1987-)

In addition to the 800 journals in the Foster Business Library Periodicals Collection, the Foster Business Library offers access to over 100 million full text articles in over 10,000 periodicals through its full text article databases such as EBSCO Business Source Premier, Factiva, LexisNexis Academic, and ProQuest Databases. These article databases may be found on the Foster Business Library homepage, listed under Databases.

All four of these databases are available from any computer on the campus network as well as from home (via the UW Connectivity Kit or the Libraries' Off-Campus Access link, using your UW Net ID and password). The easiest of these databases to use is ProQuest Databases. For more information about accessing Foster Business Library databases from off campus, see Database Access. For more information about business databases, see the research guide entitled Databases, A to Z.

• ProQuest Databases:

  This database--actually, a family of over two dozen databases--offers full text articles for over 10,000 publications, including scholarly journals, magazines, trade and industry periodicals, newspapers, and reports on a very wide range of topics. To find articles on specific topics, search by word or phrase by keying your search phrase into the search box--or search for your topic in the Topic Guide. Article full text is often available in several formats, including text, text plus graphics, and PDF. This database also offers a very useful subject structure, to narrow search results, as well as article citation information.

  Your search terms will be highlighted in red in each article. For tips on searching this database, see About ProQuest Databases.

  For example, a search in this database for Business Writing produced a list of more than 1,300 articles, including over sixty articles in scholarly journals, over forty articles in magazines, over 240 articles in trade publications, and over six hundred newspaper articles.

  In the top menu, see the Topic Guide; look for the subject Business Writing for over 400 articles, with an option to narrow this subject search by many related terms. This database also provides indexing and abstracts for the journals Business Communication Quarterly, Journal of Business Communication, and Journal of Business and Technical Communication, with full text only for the latter title. The Foster Business Library database Expanded Academic ASAP provides full text for the other two titles.

  Some examples of articles:

  • "Magnetize Your Marketing Materials"   (Journal of Accountancy. New York: Nov 2006. Vol. 202, Iss. 5;  pg. 32, 1 pgs)
  • "Optimize Your Presentation of Numbers"   (Chemical Engineering. New York: Oct 2006. Vol. 113, Iss. 10;  pg. 59, 3 pgs)
  • "Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace"   (Technical Communication, Aug 2005. Vol. 52, Iss. 3;  pg. 396, 2 pgs)
  • "Teaching Business and Technical Writing in China"   (Technical Communication Quarterly, Spring 2005. Vol. 14, Iss. 2;  pg. 141, 19 pgs)
  • "It's good business to communicate well"   (Pantagraph, Jan 9, 2005.  pg. F.2)
  • "Writing Well in Business"   (Business and Economic Review, Apr-Jun 2004. Vol. 50, Iss. 3;  pg. 13, 3 pgs)
  • "Wanted: Corporate storytellers"   (The Writer, Mar 2002. Vol. 115, Iss. 3;  pg. 48)
  • "A quick guide to effective cover letters"   (Inside PageMaker. Louisville: Jul 2001. Vol. 7, Iss. 7;  pg. 14, 1 pgs)
  • "How to e-mail like a C.E.O."   (New York Times Magazine. New York: Apr 8, 2001.  pg. 7, 2 pgs)

The Foster Business Library Reference Desk is staffed nearly all the hours that the library is open. The staff at the desk will be happy to help you find research tools on any business subject. For e-mail questions, direct your query to balib@u.washington.edu. For assistance by telephone, dial (206) 543-8012 during library hours.

See also the Foster Business Library's Business & Economics FAQ, and, in particular, the section for General Business.

For research guides on a wide variety of industries, products, companies, issues and topics, see the Team Librarian Consultation archives.

• Team Consultation Archives (arranged by class or program)
• Team Consultation Archives (arranged by industry)
• Team Consultation Archives (arranged by title of assignment)
• Team Consultation Archives (arranged by academic quarter)
• Index to all Team Consultations and Research Guides

• UW Business Writing Center