In this chapter, you will learn:

  • How to research effectively using keywords and phrases
  • Some of the differences between sources generated by search engines, databases, and encyclopedias
  • Vocabulary for describing and understanding different kinds of sources
  • How to identify a source’s bias and evaluate its credibility

Now that we’ve spent time understanding controversies, we will introduce you to some basic tools for finding information about the topics you’re interested in. We will also help you to evaluate and use the sources you find. Before we do, however, we’d like to make a few points about research in general:

  • Research, like writing, is something you do over and over again. You don’t research once and then write. You research, write, research some more, write some more, research a bit more, write a bit more, and so on.
  • Research is not just the process of finding information. It’s also the process of evaluating information. As you research, you must decide what is useful or not useful to your project and in what ways.
  • Research requires looking through a range of sources to find different kinds of information.
  • Research generally begins with questions and keywords.

Useful Suggestions: If you haven’t developed a list of keywords, we recommend that you return to the end of the introductory chapter and complete the “Short Writing Assignment” presented there. It will help you develop a list of keywords. The UT library also offers an exercise that will help you develop a list of keywords; you can find it at: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/keywords/. Try either or both exercises. Most importantly, don’t start looking for sources until you’ve found some keywords that can guide your research.</span>

Finding Information

To introduce the basics of research, let’s explore three tools: the search engine, the database, and the encyclopedia. Each leads to a different kind of information.

Using Search Engines

You are likely familiar with search engines because most regular Internet users employ these tools every day. It is important to keep in mind that Internet search engines contain no sources in themselves; they only point to sources. Once you’ve done a Google search, for instance, you must click on a link that seems relevant to your search terms. The link takes you somewhere else, somewhere other than the Google search engine or the Google search page. Something else to keep in mind about Internet search engines: They generate information that has not been curated.

Since we will use this term a lot, allow us a moment to define it. When someone curates information, they organize it for an audience. That’s why we say that a museum “curates” its collection of historical or artistic artifacts. A bunch of unorganized fossils on a table would make no sense to someone who is not a paleontologist. Someone at the natural science museum curates these fossils by putting them in displays that include explanations of where they were found, which animals they belonged to, and when these animals probably lived. Curated information is more accessible, but it is also more limited. Uncurated information is more plentiful but potentially less helpful. Searching Google to find articles about race and criminal justice is a bit like walking into a room filled with a disorganized pile of all the fossils in all the world. You might find the T-Rex you’re looking for—if you know what to look for—but you’ll have to sort through a bunch of other rocks in the process.

An Internet search engine can be a good place to start your research. To pick up an example from the last chapter, if you type “race conscious admissions University of Texas” into Google, you may get a bunch of links to arguments supporting and/or opposing UT’s policy on race-conscious admissions. And if you do get such links, then you definitely have a controversy. But you will also get many other links—links to articles about the legal case that Abigail Fisher filed against UT, for instance, will be plentiful. Uncurated information comes in all shapes and sizes. But you can limit the information that you receive, and you can more effectively search Google by using a few basic tricks of database searching. Since Google is the most popular Internet search engine in the U.S., the exercise we’ve provided demonstrates ways to limit searches using Google. But keep in mind that every Internet search engine can be streamlined in these ways, even though every Internet search engine may not use the same commands.

Brief Exercise: Take your keywords and apply the following techniques for limiting searches in Google. Keep careful track of how the search results differ.

  • Search for an exact phrase by placing that phrase in quotation marks.
    • Example: “ten percent rule”
  • Exclude a word by placing a dash (-) in front of the word.
    • Example: vegetarianism -health
    • This command will find results that include the word vegetarianism but not the word health.
  • Place a tilde (~) before a word to search for similar words.
    • Example: ~teacher salaries
    • This command will find results that include synonyms for teacher (such as educator or instructor) and that include the word salaries.
  • Search for multiple alternative words by placing OR between the words.
    • Example: vegetarianism health OR environment
    • This command will find results about vegetarianism that also contain the word health or the word environment.
  • Search for results within a specific date range by placing ellipses (…) between the dates.
    • Example: global warming 2015…2018
  • Search for results on a specific site or kind of site by using “site:” and a domain descriptor.
    • Example: global warming site:edu
    • Example: free speech site:aclu.org **You can use these Google tricks in combination as well. For example, if you are looking for results about Internet privacy that are not about Facebook and that appeared on .org sites in the past three years, your search term might look like this: site:.org ~Internet privacy -Facebook 2015…2020

After spending time searching the Internet for your controversy, you will likely have a better understanding of what kinds of information and perspectives are out there. If none of your searches brings you to any recent arguments about your controversy, then you may need to rephrase the controversy, rethink the keywords, or simply choose another controversy. If everything goes well, you will have links to recent articles in which stakeholders express their opinions regarding your chosen controversy.

No matter what the outcome, do not limit yourself to using only search engines—whether you use Google and/or any other search engine. This is important for several reasons. First, Internet search engines do not discriminate among information sources. Every source, at a glance, appears equally believable and equally useful. Second, Internet searches do not give access to information that you have to pay for. A lot of information belongs to a person or organization, and you can’t access it without paying a fee. Sometimes you can’t even find it without paying for access. Finally, Internet searches link only to online media. A lot of information may be primarily offered in a different medium, such as print. In sum, Google will help you to find blogs (some written by reliable sources, some not) that are free to read online. Google may help you to find articles that appear online or both online and in print. But other research tools will help you find other—and potentially more useful—sources in different media.

Using Databases

A database is a curated collection of information. It will include a search engine, but this search engine will point you only to information that is housed in the database. Databases are typically proprietary—someone owns each database and will not allow you to use it until you pay a fee and have permission. Each database contains a specific kind of information. For instance, some databases—such as those of the Modern Language Association (MLA) or the Education Resources and Information Center (ERIC)—list titles and abstracts of articles. If you want to find the complete article, you must go elsewhere, probably to a library with a subscription to the journal that published the article. Some databases, on the other hand, include the full text of the articles. All databases curate the information to some degree. MLA, for example, features only articles from academic journals in certain humanities disciplines: English, literature, foreign languages, and the like.

A database has several advantages over an Internet search engine. Database searches allow you to focus on a particular kind and a particular quality of information. You are trying to map a recent public controversy, so you are looking for credible sources in recent media. You want to read, among other things, arguments about pressing issues. Such articles tend to appear in newspapers or magazines, on TV news programs, and on particular websites. Such articles tend to be credible when they are published by nationally recognized and respected venues, such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Salon, and HumanEventsOnline. So you want a database that focuses on a certain subject (current events), on certain media (both digital and print), and on certain venues (news outlets). Your school should have a number of databases available through its library website.

Useful Suggestions: Some useful databases to start with if your institution offers them:

  • Alt-Press Watch (a collection of articles from “alternative” media)
  • Ethnic News Watch (a collection of articles from ethnic, minority, and native press outlets)
  • Factiva (a collection of articles about business and finance)
  • Academic OneFile (a database that features scholarly and newspaper articles on current events)
  • Academic Search Complete (like Academic OneFile, this database features scholarly and popular sources about current events)
  • NexusUni (a collection of articles and other news media from a range of sources)

Database searching is a good second step in your research process. After you’ve searched the Internet to get a feel for your controversy and found a few potentially useful sources, you can go into the databases and find more detailed, credible, and researched sources.

Using Encyclopedias

An encyclopedia is one of the older ways to curate information. Encyclopedias were around in ancient Greece, and you can still find them today. An encyclopedia is an effort to collect and condense everything we know—in general or about a particular subject, e.g., an encyclopedia of philosophy. Of course, no one can collect or present all knowledge. So encyclopedias summarize and excerpt. They give brief introductions to topics, and they reprint or summarize parts of various sources. The most commonly used online encyclopedia today is Wikipedia, a compendium of information composed by the users themselves. Wikipedia users add information, oftentimes linking to their sources to show us that they have done their homework. Like most encyclopedias, Wikipedia is a great source for background information—terms, dates, and events that you don’t know or understand.

Wikipedia is an “open-source” encyclopedia—almost anyone can contribute, and everyone has access. Here are a couple of proprietary encyclopedias that might come in handy during your research:

  • Gale Virtual Reference Library
  • Opposing Viewpoints

Useful Suggestion: You can find descriptions of and advice about using each on the following UT library webpage

Encyclopedias are the research tools you want to keep always at your side but never at the center of your work. They help you to make sense of a new subject; and they might point you to new sources by introducing keywords or even by linking to a source. But you should not rely on encyclopedias for anything else, for two reasons: First, you want to see the information first-hand. Encyclopedias are so heavily curated that you cannot get the most recent or even the most important information from them. So you must go to the original sources—the people who first offered the ideas and opinions that encyclopedias reference. Second, experienced researchers know that encyclopedias are not the most up-to-date, the most relevant, or the most comprehensive sources. Encyclopedia entries are rarely written by experts, and they’re never written for specialists, so they tend to feature basic concepts. That’s why journalists and your professors chuckle when they read an article that relies heavily on Wikipedia for information. Wikipedia is a good start, but it should not be the end of your journey. If Wikipedia is your ultimate source, if it’s the first and the last thing you consult, then a knowledgeable audience will suspect that you are not knowledgeable yourself.

Further Discussion: Read a Wikipedia entry on a recent controversial topic, such as immigration reform or handgun regulation. Then consult another encyclopedia—such as the Gale Virtual Library or Opposing Viewpoints—on the same subject. What terms (keywords) appear in both? What background information—history, definitions, key concepts—do they both offer the reader? Based on the common keywords, how would you change the way you’re searching for articles? Based on the common background information, what will you have to teach an interested but uninformed audience about your controversy before you begin to summarize the viewpoints in the controversy?

Brief Exercise: We discuss Internet search engines, databases, and encyclopedias in terms of the media they tend to feature, the kind of information they privilege, and the levels of curation they offer. Using the following chart, describe a couple of other more recent research tools. Fill in the empty boxes in the last two rows of this table:

Research Tool Featured Media Kind of Information Level of Curation
Wikipedia Digital Summary Articles Heavy
Google Digital All kinds None
NexusUni Print Newspaper articles Somewhat
Reddit ————— ————— —————
Yahoo News ————— ————— —————

How do these new research tools stack up against those we discussed earlier? Are they more like Internet search engines, databases, or encyclopedias? Or are they something else altogether? Are they useful to someone researching a controversy?

Evaluating Information

Once you’ve found a pile of potentially useful sources, you will have to decide which will be most helpful to your work. We suggest finding more articles than you need because we suspect that some of what you find will not be useful. If your instructor requires that you cite at least three sources, try to find eight or even ten. Then you can start evaluating those sources.

A lot of people evaluate information by saying that it is “good” or it is “bad.” But what does that mean? Since you will be finding many articles produced by news organizations, you will quickly learn that people have very different opinions about what is a “good” and what is a “bad” source. Often, people dislike a venue because they disagree with the political perspective of the editorial staff, but disagreeing with something doesn’t mean it is a “bad” source or that it is “fake news.” Since the New York Times often publishes editorials with a liberal bias, some conservatives think it’s a poor source of information. And since the Wall Street Journal tends to publish editorials with a conservative bias, some liberals think it’s a poor source of information. Both news organizations are, by the way, leaders in the industry. People most able to recognize good journalism—journalists—hold both venues in high esteem. We become more knowledgeable when we avoid evaluating sources based on the political bias they demonstrate. Focus instead on the source’s credibility: Is the information well-researched? Is the writer an expert? Is the venue respected by people who know this subject?

The following sections will provide useful vocabulary that will help articulate answers to these questions for yourself as a reader, researcher, and writer of 21st century media.

Viewpoint and Information Articles

While researching a controversy, the most important distinction that you must draw is between a viewpoint source and an information source. In the early days of modern journalism, this was a hard distinction to make because newspapers mixed commentary with reporting. An article would tell its audience about recent events while also trying to convince them to believe or feel something about these events. News articles offered both a viewpoint and information. Through most of the twentieth century, however, newspapers and magazines tried to separate viewpoints from information by offering information articles in one section and opinions and editorials in another. That is why when you pick up a newspaper or go to a newspaper’s website, you’ll see a section titled “Opinions and Editorials.” That’s the viewpoint section, the place where people get to argue their beliefs. The rest of the articles are supposed to offer information alone.

Information articles often tell the reader about people’s viewpoints, but they do so by quoting or summarizing and always by attributing the viewpoint to someone. The reporter will write, for instance, “According to Representative Cushman (Republican from Oklahoma), the healthcare.gov website is a ‘train wreck.’” Information articles try to stay unbiased by offering at least two viewpoints on any controversial issue. So to avoid inserting their own opinion or slant, the reporter who wrote the sentence above would quickly provide another viewpoint attributed to another stakeholder: “But Democrats and the White House believe that the website, despite its initial troubles, is working very well. ‘There were a few hiccups at first,’ said Jane Johnson (Democrat from Illinois), ‘but healthcare.gov is now up and running.’”

Unfortunately, when you find news articles in a database, you may not know which section of the magazine or newspaper these articles first appeared in, so you may have trouble determining what kind of article you’re reading. Here are a few clues to look for.

Viewpoint articles:

  • Use the first and the second person: “When I see the DOW average fall, I conclude that the U.S. economy is struggling.”
  • Express ideas—opinions, beliefs, and factual claims—without attributing them to someone else: “Global warming is really happening, faster than we think, and because of human-made carbon emissions.”
  • Include strong language designed to move the audience: “Continuing to give food stamps to undeserving people who trade them for drugs and liquor will not help anyone and will certainly lead to the crippling dependency that plagues our inner cities.”
  • Tend to put the background information in the middle of the article, pushing the arguments up to the front where they will get more attention.

Information articles:

  • Use the third person, unless quoting: “If stock values on the DOW and the NASDAQ averages are any indication, then the U.S. economy is struggling.”
  • Attribute ideas—opinions, beliefs, and factual claims—to other people: “John Finglehopper, a climatologist at the University of Northeast State, said at a recent demonstration against drilling for oil along the U.S. Gulf Coast, ‘Global warming is really happening, faster than we think, and because of human-made carbon emissions.’”
  • Avoid strong language and instead use words to qualify claims: “A study by the Omnibus Foundation reports that some people trade food stamps for illegal narcotics and alcohol. The study concludes that food stamps may allow some people to stay on public support longer than necessary and may also contribute to systemic urban poverty.”
  • Tend to put background information near the end and new information at the beginning, so the audience will focus on the new developments.

Unfortunately, you will find that much journalism in the U.S. does not follow these standards very strictly. Many news sources, nowadays, mix viewpoints and information together, making the researcher’s job much more difficult. A news site like Salon.com will feature many articles that both express opinions and give information. News networks such as Fox and MSNBC flip back and forth between opinion and information. For this reason, we encourage you to consider three categories of news media: information sources, viewpoint sources, and info-argument sources. Be especially careful of the info-arguments. In the middle of an information article about a Supreme Court case, you may find a harangue against the justices who wrote the majority decision. And the writer may not tell you explicitly that they’ve finished reporting what other people think and have begun to tell you what they themselves think.

You need to learn and present information about your controversy while summarizing the viewpoints of its stakeholders. So you should look for both information and viewpoint articles. And you should also accept info-arguments. Finally, you should notice when information shades into opinion. Your job is to separate the information from the opinion for your audience. Tell us what has happened in the controversy (information). Tell us who the stakeholders are (more information). Tell us what they have said (viewpoints). If you can identify a handful of sources, written by different stakeholders, as unquestionably viewpoint articles, then you should reference these sources when summarizing the important stakeholders’ beliefs. Reference the rest—the information and the info-arguments—as background information to show your audience what the controversy is, why it matters, and what has led the stakeholders to take these particular positions.

Credible Sources

When considering either information or viewpoint sources, it’s important to evaluate the writers’ credibility. Should these people be trusted? Are they experts? Have they done enough research? Are they stretching the truth?

We warn you against equating credibility with bias. These are two different and equally important qualities. A writer’s bias is their inclination to believe a particular perspective. I may be liberally biased because I’m a Democrat, and you may be conservatively biased because you’re a Republican. But, despite our opposing biases, we can both be credible because we can both research our topics thoroughly. We can present our arguments honestly. And we can treat each other fairly. A credible source is one you can trust because:

  • They are knowledgeable.
  • They have your or the community’s best interests at heart.
  • They treat others—even stakeholders with opposite viewpoints—respectfully.

Here are some things to consider when judging a writer’s credibility:

  • Is the writer a recognized expert? What is the writer’s stake in making this argument? Does the writer have expertise in the area so that they can write an informed viewpoint? Is this viewpoint representative—can this person speak credibly for a larger group?
  • If the writer is not an expert, does the writer cite expert sources? Does the author cite anyone at all? Do the author’s sources have sufficient expertise to make the author’s statements believable?
  • What is the venue, and who is the audience? Who was the piece written for? In what source was it published? Would you expect the audience to be informed and reasonable? Does the venue tend to publish carefully researched and substantial arguments?
  • How strong is the writer’s argument? How is the argument supported? What kind of evidence does the writer use?
  • How accurate is the writer’s information? Does the writer cite sources? (A lack of citation or attribution is often a sign that someone is hiding poor research.) Is this evidence credible and accurate? Is the evidence from biased sources?
  • How does the writer address their opposition? A credible source will represent the opposing opinions fairly and will respectfully explain why they disagree. Does this writer oversimplify the opinions of opponents so that these opinions can be easily refuted? Does the writer make fun of or dismiss opponents or their ideas?
  • How current is the writer’s information? Does the writer rely on the most up-to-date information?

Source Bias

Since you’re looking for viewpoint articles, many of your sources will be biased. Viewpoint articles are written by stakeholders to convince others that a particular perspective is best. Your job is not to show your reader that a piece is biased (because they all are.) Your job is to think about and articulate how and why it is biased. Understanding a source’s bias will help you to make sense of the controversy. Once you can identify the source’s bias, you’ll be able to discern why some stakeholders tend to favor this viewpoint. When reflecting on a source’s bias, you may have to learn about the writer. Does this person belong to an institution or an industry that accounts for his bias? Further research into the venue or the audience will also help. Does this magazine typically publish arguments that appeal to a specific political leaning? Here are few things to consider when thinking about bias:

  • Writer: Who is the writer? What is the writer’s stake in making this argument? (Note that “editorials” published in magazines and newspapers don’t list a writer because the audience will assume that the arguments presented reflect the bias of the publication’s editorial staff. If you want to find out whether the Washington Post—or any other venue—has a liberal or a conservative bias, read the editorials.)
  • Venue: Who is the audience? Where is this published? What does that tell you, if anything, about the perspective?
  • Alternative Views: How, if at all, does the writer recognize and address opposing viewpoints? A writer who opposes a particular viewpoint is likely biased against that perspective. A writer who strongly opposes a particular viewpoint, to the point of deriding the opposition, is certainly biased.
  • Language: Does the author use language that indicates one viewpoint in a controversy? People who favor legalizing marijuana tend to call it “cannabis.” People who oppose capital punishment tend to call it the “death penalty.” Often, people expressing opposing viewpoints in a debate use opposite terms: “pro-life” vs. “pro-choice”; “death tax” vs. “estate tax”; “illegal alien” vs. “undocumented immigrant.” These keywords not only allow you to identify bias, but they will also help you to search for other, similar viewpoints.

Chapter Assignment: Research Log

Keep a research log, a record of where you’ve searched, what search terms you used, and what you found. For every search, record the following information: tool, keywords, parameters, results. For example:

Research Tool Keyword Parameters Results
Google illegal immigration texas fence typed into the search box with no punctuation An article on Forbes.com (7-18-2013), arguing that the fence is too costly
Google texas border fence typed into the search box with no punctuation An article from The Lookout, 12-21-2011 (hosted on Yahoo News) about U.S. citizens who will live in U.S. territory that is on the Mexican side of the fence. A blog dedicated to opposing the border fence: notexasborderwal
NexusUni texas border fence Typed into search box with no punctuation, searching “all news” from April 1, 2013–April 7, 2013, and exclusively collecting editorials and opinions A May 15, 2013, article from the Augusta Chronicle about an immigration bill introduced by Marco Rubio. The article includes the phrase “Texas border fence” but does not discuss the fence itself.
NexusUni texas fence Typed into search box with no punctuation, searching “all news” for all dates and exclusively collecting editorials and opinions A May 4, 2008, New York Times article arguing against the fence along the Texas border.

After you’ve done a few searches using different keywords, different parameters, and different research tools, answer the following questions:

  • Which search terms lead you to the most relevant results?
  • Which search terms and databases reliably lead to information sources? Viewpoint sources?
  • Which search terms and databases lead you to credible sources?
  • Which search terms and databases lead you to sources with particular biases?
  • How will you alter your research techniques, your controversy, and/or your list of keywords based on what you’ve found so far?