Once you identify an issue that interests you, where can you go to find more in-depth information? As with most things these days, an online search engine is probably your best first stop. When researching any topic, start with general search terms and then progress to more specific search terms as you learn more about the issue. It might also be wise to see if your search engine has advanced search features that allow you to look for academic sources, such as Google Scholar.
When researching online, be sure to look for credible information. For learning about political issues, using websties with .gov and .edu domains is a safe way to ensure you are getting information from a credible source. If you are using other websites, be sure to find out who is responsible for the website and who wrote the article you are reading. Look for citations--footnotes or end notes--that suggest the article is based on credible sources. Those citations might also help you identify other good articles to read.
Try to gather facts of all kinds as you read and explore, including data, statistics, and research results that have been published in academic journals and then reprinted, with the scholar's permission, on websites or in online articles. These hard facts are the best foundation for a deep and nuanced understanding of an issue rather than sources that clearly offer people’s opinions or emotional reactions to the issue.
As an example, the list of steps below demonstrates how you might look for information on the issue of national debt.
| Step 1 | Search online using the search terms “national debt” and “.gov.” This approach returns only government websites related to the national debt. |
| Step 2 | The first website the search engine returns is “treasury.gov,” and it holds a wealth of information, including additional links to reports, data, and statistics. Explore the Treasury Department's website, reading any articles that seem related to the national debt, especially as a political issue. |
| Step 3 | Do an additional search for “national debt report” and “federal budget 2018,” two phrases that appear on the treasury.gov site. Read additional web pages explaining how much money is included in the national debt and how that money is spent. Repeat this process as needed until you have collected enough facts, data, and statistics. You may need to revisit this step multiple times. |
| Step 4 | Review all relevant charts, graphs, and statistics. Make sure you understand the purpose of each one. |
Besides online research, you may find useful information in newspapers or magazines, on national or local television news programs, and by reading books published by the government or academic sources.
At the beginning of this module, you identified an issue to research and understand more completely. (If you have not done so, you'll need to do that now.) As you work through this lesson, you will explore and analyze this issue. Click the Activity button below to download the Better Know an Issue worksheet, which will guide you through the processes of research and analysis. Complete just the first section, Part 1: Research the Issue. Then save the worksheet where you can easily find it again later.
