Use Professional Association Websites
Professional associations and organizational websites are excellent resources for identifying issues and trends in your career field. There are professional and trade organizations for almost every industry or career.
What to look for:
Once you've found the website for a professional organization, you should . . .
- Look for links such as: News, Newsletters, Topics, Publications, Research, Blog, Advocacy, Conference Agenda, Meeting Notes, Press Releases, etc.
- The titles of workshops, professional development sessions, or conferences can also give you a pretty good idea of what issues are important in that field.
- If the organization or association publishes any journals or trade publications, you can usually find those listed under Publications. You may not be able to access the full text of the articles, but you may be able to see the titles and summaries, which will allow you to identify issues and trends.
Search for articles within the professional association publications:
Once you have identified some issues or trends relevant to your field, you can then move on to search for resources that discuss those particular issues in more detail.
