The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is an excellent resource to learn about events affecting the current
business environment and the accounting profession. Each student will be assigned one day to turn in
two recent articles from the WSJ and to complete the tasks noted below – all uploaded onto Canvas.
I especially recommend looking at articles that are in the “Business - Business” Section –
see examples posted in separate document. These articles have more substance and are not
generally opinion pieces. Your articles must be something related to accounting, auditing, or
something affecting the current business environment or a specific business.
Refer to Canvas for examples that would be considered acceptable; an earnings release
announcement (quarterly or year-end) is not considered acceptable for this assignment. Also,
do not include Opinion pieces in your articles (we want more fact based articles). If you choose
an article related to politics, then it must also be heavily related to how it affects the business
environment or a specific business and those types of articles are most likely in the Business,
Markets, or Tech section. I will select articles throughout the semester for us to briefly discuss, so a
schedule will be maintained in order for us to continuously learn about new business events.
You can access WSJ articles using the library database – Factiva. Instructions are provided at the
end of this document.
You are required to upload the following (on your assigned day by 7:00 p.m. or you can
upload it early within the prior 5 days of your due date):
1.) Two WSJ articles from the past seven days (your assigned date or the prior six
days). Be sure the articles are readable! You can utilize the print to PDF function or
copy/paste the article to word if it is still readable. Do not insert links unless you also
attach a PDF or word doc copy of the articles.
2.) A typed bullet point list of four important or interesting things from each article.
This is not a copy/paste of sentences from the article. I want you to summarize important points
so that the reader can understand what is going even if they have not read the entire article.
3.) Answer the following question for each of your two articles:
The event/condition in this article has the potential to be a
_______________________ (positive, negative or not significant – choose one)
influence for investors or creditors because __________________________
Your response to item #3 can be brief, but must be done in a sincere manner in order to
receive credit. Do not include more than five sentences, but one sentence is not enough. You
do not have to do outside research, simply give a well thought out answer based on the
information in the article and your own personal business/accounting knowledge.
__________________________________________
To recap, your deliverables are as follows:
 Typed Word document (with your name and class time)
o Bullet point list for article 1 and answer to item#3 for article 1
o Bullet point list for article 2 and answer to item#3 for article 2
 WSJ article 1
 WSJ article 2
How to find WSJ articles
1. OSU library website (library.okstate.edu)
2. Find “Databases”
3. Go to “F” and find “Factiva”
4. Leave the “free text search” box blank
5. Go to “Date” drop down box – choose “in the last week”
6. Go to “Source” - click the arrow to expand further
a. Click on “The Wall Street Journal - All Sources”
Do NOT double click – only click once – if you double click you will see the words
NOT in front of the WSJ – that will exclude the WSJ!
b. You should then see The WSJ – All Sources appear above next to “Source”
7. Go to “Subject” – Click on the items below
“Corporate /Industrial News” , “Economic News” “Commodity/Financial Market
News”
a. Do NOT double click – only click once – if you double click you will see the
words NOT in front of these terms. You should end up with both of the above
terms and the words “OR” in between them
8. Click on “search”
9. View the articles by clicking on the blue headlines
10. Print articles one at a time by selecting the printer icon – choose “Article Format”
11. A new window should appear with the full article
*** go to next page for screen shots***
How to find WSJ articles
1. OSU library website (library.okstate.edu)
2. Find “Databases”
3. Go to “F” and find “Factiva”
4. Leave the “free text search” box blank
5. Go to “Date” drop down box – choose “in the last week”
6. Go to “Source” - click the arrow to expand further
a. Click on “The Wall Street Journal - All Sources”
Do NOT double click – only click once – if you double click you will see the words
NOT in front of the WSJ – that will exclude the WSJ!
b. You should then see The WSJ – All Sources appear above next to “Source”
7. Go to “Subject” – Click on
“Corporate /Industrial News” , “Economic News”, “Commodity/Financial Market
News”
a. Do NOT double click – only click once – if you double click you will see the
words NOT in front of these terms. You should end up with both of the above
terms and the words “OR” in between them
8. Click on “search”
9. View the articles by clicking on the blue headlines
10. Print articles one at a time by selecting the printer icon – choose “Article Format”
11. A new window should appear with the full article