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SPAN 3230 Life & Culture in Spanish America

Research Honeycomb

7 hexagons aranged like a honeycomb.

Created by Jackie Stapleton, Liaison Librarian, University of Waterloo; Adapted by Aneta Kwak, Mikayla Redden, Jeff Newman, Liaison Librarians, University of Toronto; Modified by Dylan McGlothlin, Humanities Librarian, Western Michigan University

Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

What is it?

What we typically think of in academic research: books, journal articles, conference presentations, etc., created by scholars, researchers, and students for each other.

How do I find it?

How do I evaluate it?

Most sources from academic voices have undergone a process called peer review, where 2 or more experts in the field evaluate the research questions, methodology, findings, conclusions, sources, etc., for quality and originality.

Look to see if there are any conflicts of interest or funding statements.

What is it?

Magazine and newspaper articles, and videos and social media posts created by international, national, local, regional, or topic-based news networks. These are written by writers and journalists for the general public.

How do I find it?

How do I evaluate it?

There are many different tools available to evaluate news sources, each with its own strategy for determining bias. Here are a few to check out:

*Bias charts only show the average bias leanings of all the articles, posts, videos, etc. of a news source. They can be helpful to get an idea of how to evaluate a specific article, but the bias will depend on the author and type of article, as well as the news source that published it. For example, letters to the editor, opinion, and guest articles include more of the writer's thoughts and judgments rather than factual statements. The article type may be stated next to the title of the article or the author's name, which could be at the beginning or end of the article.

What is it?

The voices of those who are being researched; individuals directly affected by your topic.

*Some NGOs are created by and for community members.

How do I find it?

  • Social Media (Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, X, Bluesky, etc.)
  • Google site searching
    • site:reddit.com [type keywords here]

How do I evaluate it?

Because the goal of finding community voices on your topic is to hear from those directly affected by your equity issue, the main evaluation question to ask of these sources is: Does the person have the identity or experience to be considered a community member?

  • Confirm with Other Sources: Is there proof that someone has the experience they claim to have? If someone claims to be a published author, their book should be advertised on a publisher's website.
  • Self-Identifying: Some identities and experiences cannot be verified through outside sources. For example, the discussion around self-diagnosis of autism. Many people who identify as autistic lack a formal diagnosis due to high costs and limited access to experienced clinicians. They may also avoid a formal diagnosis, fearing it will lead to discrimination. Does the community you are studying rely on self-identification?
  • Anonymity: Some community members may only feel comfortable sharing their experiences anonymously. You can try to confirm their membership in a community by checking their posting history to see if they consistently identify as being a member of that community.

What is it?

Non-government organizations (NGOs) are non-profit organizations that operate independently from any government, though they may work alongside government organizations and advocate for policy changes. For example, the American Red Cross, an NGO, often collaborates with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, on disaster relief. NGOs often have a humanitarian, social, or environmental focus. As an organization separate from a government, they can be very focused in their work, collecting and publishing data about the needs of the populations they serve and how their work fulfills those needs.

To simplify the categorization of voice types within the Research Honeycomb, for-profit organizations, like businesses and corporations, are included in this voice type. Though they are also a non-government organization, the label of NGO is typically only used for non-profit organizations. Businesses need data to develop products tailored to their customer base. Some of that information is made public.

*Some NGOs are created by and for community members.

How do I find it?

  • Social Media (Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, X, Bluesky, etc.)
  • Google site searching
    • site:reddit.com [type keywords here]

How do I evaluate it?

Both types of organizations have reasons for sharing the information they collect: non-profit NGOs want to expand support for a community and convince donors that their work is worthy of financial support, and for-profit businesses want to sell their product and assure shareholders that they have made a good investment. Because of this, the information they publish is presented in a way that supports these goals. This doesn't mean you should avoid using this information in your research. Oftentimes, they are the only ones who publish that specific information because they are the only organizations interested in it! Just consider their data collection methods and how language and data visualizations are being used to support the goals of an organization in your evaluation of the information.

  • Goals: What is their mission and vision statement? What is their goal? If it's vague, what is implied by the language they use in those statements in the context of the rest of their website? This can be found on their About page, linked at the very top or very bottom of a website.

  • Who: Who makes up this organization? Is there information about membership or a board of directors? If an organization serves a specific community, are any members of that community involved in leadership? Is there information on who funds their work or who owns the company? This information is on their About, Contact, or Directory page.

  • Data: Look for a Resources list. How was their data collected? Are they making logical assumptions from that data? If there are any links to other information sources, do they lead to other organizations or stay within that organization's website? Look for information gaps. For example, does a survey of how long it takes Americans to commute to work consider those who use public transportation and rideshares, or only those who own their vehicles?

  • Outside Views: What do other websites say about this organization? Are there any notable news articles about them? One of the simplest ways to do this is to search the NGO title in Google and browse the News tab.

What is it?

Information by a local, national, domestic or foreign government.

How do I find it?

  • Databases
    • list below
  • Google site search
    • site:.gov [keywords here]

How do I evaluate it?

  • The End of Term Web Archive has saved government websites at the end of presidential administrations since 2008.
  • The Wayback Machine can show you how specific websites have changed over time.
  • Who created it? A lot of government reports are created by independent contractors who may be individual researchers, corporations, or universities. This will still give you an idea of the original intent behind the data collection and use.
  • When was it created? Consider the context of the information about your community or equity issue. What was happening nationally or globally at the time? What were the mainstream social and political norms? Knowing this background information can explain what data was being collected and its intended use.

U.S. Government Databases

International Government Databases

What is it?

Stakeholder: an individual or group indirectly affected by the equity issue you are studying.
Ally: an individual or group with similar goals to those who are affected by the equity issue but are not community members.

How do I find it?

How do I evaluate it?

Check out the other voice types for tips on how to evaluate them.

Boolean Operators and Symbols

Boolean Operators are words or symbols used to combine keywords in a search.

The most commonly used operators are: AND, OR, and NOT. When used in all caps, search engines (Library Search, databases, and Google) recognize them as a specific function. These are best described by using Venn diagrams.

Click the tabs at the top of this box to learn more about each operator.

OR will expand your search to results that have one, the other, or both search terms in the item record.

If you are researching something with a name that varies depending on the context, you can use OR to make sure the system is searching all possible versions of that term. For example, some information on post-secondary education uses the term "university" while others use "higher education." If you want both, use OR to combine your terms.

Note: This is the default operator search engines use to combine your search terms. That's why some results will only have one of your search terms unless you specify otherwise.

Use AND when you want to limit your search to a specific combination of words.

If you are researching how nutrition information is shared on social media, use AND to make sure you only receive results with both terms in the item record.

Use NOT to narrow your search and eliminate instances of another term.

venn diagram with only the left side shaded in

If you are searching with a term that is part of a larger term not relevant to your research or that term is also used in a different field, you may need to use NOT to remove results. For example, if you are searching for the portrayal of the traditional concept of witches (crone, pointy hat, flies on a broom with a black cat) in the media and use the term "witch," you may receive results about The Witcher, a book, video game, and Netflix series. To remove these results, use NOT.

To use NOT in Google searches, use - (minus sign).

Though some Advanced Search features of search engines allow you to have multiple search boxes with drop-down menus for Boolean Operators, you can use multiple operators in single line searches.

( ) Just like in math, parentheses are their own groupings. This part of the search is done before it is combined with any other part of the search.

" " Quotation marks make sure that two or more words are in that exact order or are found with that exact spelling.

* An asterisk functions as truncation. It can be used to find words with multiple endings. For example, teach* will search for teach, teacher, teachers, teaches, and teaching.

? A question mark functions as a wildcard. It can be used to find words where only one letter is changed. For example, wom?n will search for women, woman, womyn, and womxn. Another example is Latin? will search for Latina, Latino, Latinx, and Latine.

example advanced search using separate search boxes

example advanced search using one search box

Both of the searches above will function the same even though they are written differently.

Small Group Activity

Use these links for the small group activity

What NOT to use as a source

Some sources are used to get ideas for keywords or to find even better sources, but they should not be a final stop in your research journey. Here are some examples.