The Craft of Research

While my point today about checking the spelling of names is still valid, my response to Eugenia about not trusting people on their own names probably deserves an addendum.  First of all, I would agree that people are less likely to lie about their names than they are about their ages or titles, which definitely need verification beyond their word for it.  But more significantly, there are a lot of times when you’re simply not going to be able to get the spelling of someone’s name by asking the person.  What if the person is deceased?  Or missing?  Or just arrested?  Or in some other position where you’re not going to be able to ask him or her?  You need to know these “best practices” for reasons beyond just not trusting people on their own names.

OK, I’ve updated this post to reflect the fact-checking class material as taught.  First, we discussed some of the most common kinds of facts that need to be checked in any story, including numbers and statistics, names, dates, ages, locations, titles and degrees.  Among the kinds of numbers we discussed were the questionable NYPD crime statistics as reported by the New York Times, Daily News and Village Voice (again and again), as well as the 2008-09 and 2009-10 NYU tuition costs Spencer used in her “second day” story.  We agreed that while data from primary sources–such as Spencer’s 2008-09 numbers–is preferable, even that data is not necessarily accurate, as the NYPD crime statistics controversy shows.  From a research perspective, primary sources generate data, so they’re more likely to be correct, as opposed to secondary sources, which only report data.  Government agencies are a typical primary source.  (You can trust their data as much as you can trust the government.)  News media are a typical secondary source.  The general idea is to be citing primary sources in your stories, where appropriate.  You can also “couch” any questionable data, if necessary.

As far as actually checking facts, we killed three birds with one stone by looking up the name (spelling), age and location of my brother Mark, using the BirthDetails and Can I Vote? web sites.  The first was a useful secondary source, and the second linked to state voter registration sites, which qualify as primary.  This is not the only way to check the facts we did, but it’s a good one.  Another would be DMV records.  Of course, sometimes neither method will be available to you, and then you’d have to use other means.  We also agreed that an employer would be the best (primary) source for checking someone’s title.

Although we didn’t have time to review them, I did promise you links for obtaining military personnel records and a degree verification database.  The former requires a formal “Form 180″ request that takes some time to process.  The latter requires a nominal fee to retrieve records.

Last but not least, never forget the two most important fact-checking questions…

1. Are you sure?
2. Says who?

My name is Jack Styczynski and this is my fourth semester teaching research in Craft classes–my second with Rebecca Leung and first with David Lewis.  If you’re interested in my professional background, click here.  Personally, I’m a big New Orleans Saints fan (WHO DAT!) and a huge college hoophead.

The primary purpose of this blog is to give you online access to my lesson material from class.  But you’ll also want to check in frequently for posts on my most recent research discoveries, such as the All Things Census blog, Databases and E-Journals from the New York State Library and the Listorious directory of Twitter accounts. 

You’ll also see me spreading the love for some of your latest published work, such as that by Liza Eckert and Andrea Swalec this month, and Vishal Persaud, Jordan Shakeshaft and Erica Soto in December.

Welcome back, and see you soon!

This time, Ms. MacDonald contributes to the Lens blog for the the New York Times.

Some worthy recipients.  Much love to my former students Jenni Avins, Ben Fractenberg and Collin Orcutt, in particular.

• Google is testing a news-by-topic service.
• ProPublica has an Eye on the Stimulus page which includes a recovery tracker to find stimulus projects near you.

Points of emphasis for critical thinking:

1. There’s more to search engines than just plugging in words.  The best searchers use the advanced features.  There are many places to find Google tips.
2. No mainstream search engines, even Google, search anywhere close to the entire web.  They don’t include every page, nor the entirety of many longer documents.  That’s why you need to familiarize yourself with many of the sources I’ve reviewed this semester.  You can’t rely on Google exclusively.
3. Web sites are not all created equal.  Evaluate, and trust primary sources FIRST.  Sometimes you’ll want to check who owns a web site.
4. Web pages don’t die easily.  Old pages can be treasure troves.
5. The first breakout web search tool was a subject guide.  They are still around and still useful.
6. In addition to the “general” search tools, there are great “specialty” engines too.  Among the best known are Google News, Google Books and YouTube.

David Montalvo wrote about a Catholic veterans group seeking new members for The Queens Courier.

Kerri MacDonald wrote a piece for “The Local” about a computer glitch that kept Maplewood residents from getting e-mails containing H1N1 vaccination information.

Today’s bonus: A great place to find zip codes for New York City neighborhoods.  Could come in handy when using ReferenceUSA or looking for Census Bureau stats, among other things.

Another golden nugget from Heath Meriwether’s blog.

I can’t say it enough.  Nexis and Factiva, people, Nexis and Factiva.

On “The Local” blog for the New York Times, Kerri covered a debate over whether rooming houses should be allowed in South Orange.

Today’s bonus: In the spring, I mentioned that archives of several magazines are being hosted at Google Books.   Now I’ve found a complete list, including Life.