Bias is a tendency or preference towards a particular characteristic, behavior, belief, etc.

Because of our individual life experiences, we have unique lenses or perspectives that can lead to biases when we view the world. This affects the words we use to describe things and the keywords we use to search for information.

We also need to be aware of other people's perspectives. What biases do the authors of the information you seek have that may lead them to title their works in a certain way? What biases might the creators of databases have that lead them to select one word over another to use when categorizing information?

Bias can never be completely eliminated, but we can be aware of it and take it into consideration when performing research. Bias can affect your research in three main ways:

• Searcher: Keywords they use to search, what information they think is available.
• Information creator: The way they design their research and what is approved through peer review.
• Information organizer: The way they categorize information which affects findability.

Some terms may be biased in one way or another because they have connotations or assumptions attached to them while others are a bit more neutral. Also, terminology changes over time and can affect your search results. This is why it's best to search for different synonyms since each word will retrieve different results.

Try some of these searches and examine the differences between each set of results.

• “undocumented immigrant” v. “illegal alien”
• “handicapped" v. “disabled”
• “mental illness” v. “insane”
• “Lgbtq” v. “homosexual”
• “prisoner” v. “incarcerated” v. "justice involved"
• “discipline” v. “classroom management” 
• “Indians” v. “Native Americans” v. “indigenous peoples” 

Each term will lead you to a different conversation.