Introduction to Applied Professional Research for Accountants

From my view, the profession of accountancy continues to change rapidly. This change involves moving to an educational process that includes developing professional skills of problem solving, communicating, and conducting applied professional research. I have been very fortunate to have been involved in the Project Discovery curriculum project, funded by the Accounting Education Change Commission, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This text represents what we (my contributing authors and myself) have learned from trying to teach students the applied research process. Anita Feller has become an expert at teaching students how to access and use the professional literature databases. Her enthusiasm, competence, and dedication to educating students permeates through Chapter 4. Karen Molloy contributes the chapter on tax research. Again, a strong dedication to educating accountancy professionals emanates from her materials. To be progressive in preparing students for the future, I realized that training on using Internet resources was essential for my endeavor. To that end, I needed only to look to Tom Omer, who displayed great enthusiasm for this project from the moment I discussed it with him. To these three, I must say "thank you." Besides my contributing authors, many individuals have contributed to this project. These include my academic colleagues, particularly those at the University of Illinois, various accountancy professionals who encouraged me to "think outside the box," my editorial team at Prentice Hall, and the many students who have allowed me to try to teach the applied professional research process to them. Special thanks are due to Norton Bedford; Larry Tomassini, Ira Solomon, Chris Olsen, Tom Linsmeier, Tom Stober, Sara Tenney, and P.J. Boardman. In addition, Tom Stober, John Simon, John Hassell, Kathy Petroni, Lisa Koonce, Lucille Montondon, and Jeffrey Harkins assisted by reviewing materials for the first edition. Richard Turpen and Paul Juras provided reviews and suggestions that assisted us in improving this second edition. I must also thank my family for the time taken away from activities they and I would have enjoyed. Without their support and patience, this project would have never been completed. New Features in the Second Edition In this second edition we have modified the materials regarding the FARS (Financial Accounting Research System) system to reflect the changes in the Folio interface. Accordingly, all of the computer screen captures are based upon the new interface currently being distributed with FARS. In addition, the chapters on using the Internet for applied professional research are updated to what is current at this time. The remainder of the text has been modified to reflect new materials or changes that have arisen from our own use of this text. A new companion web site also accompanies this edition. You can obtain additional materials and periodic updates at www.prenhall.com/ziebart . To the Student Learning to be proficient at applied professional research requires you to learn a process. That process involves a number of steps that you will need to practice. As you learn this process, you may be challenged by some aspects of the process and become impatient. Try to avoid focusing on the answer and instead, focus on the process. You will have many opportunities in your professional career to focus on the answer. At this time you need to focus on learning the process. To the Instructor In learning to educate students to conduct applied professional research, I discovered that without a strong systematic approach aimed at teaching the applied research process, students became lost in the professional literature and never understood the richness of the applied research process. As my students may attest, my first attempts to incorporate applied professioZiebart, David A. is the author of 'Introduction to Applied Professional Research for Accountants', published 2001 under ISBN 9780130341716 and ISBN 0130341711.