Researching climate change solutions: Web resources

Find research articles on the web at scholar.google.com.  Not all of the articles will be peer reviewed, but the quality will be much higher than from an ordinary Google search. 

You should have no trouble finding plenty of web sources on whatever solution you are researching. Some information sources will be highly reliable and will provide objective information, while others may be somewhat misleading. Be wary of sources that cherry pick the information they provide!

For example, if you are researching a geoengineering solution like carbon capture, a company that profits from selling this technology should not be your only source of information. Advocacy groups may also present one-sided information. Vegans may focus on cow methane while tree lovers will focus on reforestation. While it is appropriate to use sites like this as research sources, you should always keep in mind the motives of particular groups, and research broadly to make sure you see the whole picture. 

Here are some strategies for finding the least biased information:

1) Read encyclopedia articles as part of your background research. You can find specialized encyclopedias in the library database Gale Ebooks, or in online sources like Wikipedia
2) Seek out government sources, which are usually research-based. You can limit a web search to government sources by adding site:gov to your search string

3) Seek out college and university sources, which also tend to be grounded in research. You can limit a web search to government sources by adding site:edu to your search string.

4) Seek out reliable news sources. Professional journalists are trained to provide objective, fact-based reporting. You can search five of the nation's top news sources in the library database U.S. Major Dailies. 
5) Search broadly - do one search for your topic and include words like "advantage" or "benefit" then do another search with terms like "drawback" or "disadvantage."
6) Use library databases to find published magazine and journal articles. These may have their own biases, but published sources have at leased been reviewed by an editor, and some have gone through the rigorous peer-review process. (See next tab Library Databases).
7) Think critically about every information source! See box to the right "Evaluating Sources: Questions to Ask" 

How do you know if a source is right for your research? Below are some questions you can ask about your sources. There are no good or bad sources, but sources can be useful or not useful based on the evidence you're looking for.

1. Who is the author? What do you know about the author’s background? (hint: Google the author). What makes the author an expert on this particular topic (remember that experience and research are markers of expertise as well as education)?
2. What journal, magazine, organization, or website published this information? Look for an "about" page on the publisher's website (or explore their website) and also Google the name of the publication/organization/website (or look for a Wikipedia page about it) to learn more about the publisher of the information. What kind of reputation does it have? What is their purpose in sharing this information? Is it known for promoting specific points of view? 

3. Can you tell where the information in the article came from? Do they share any information from other sources or does it seem like they’re sharing their opinion? If they used other sources, do those sources seem worth trusting?

4. Based on your answers to these questions, would you trust this source? If not, could anything from this article still be useful? Often articles link to other useful resources or mention other authors and studies that could be helpful.

You may not get good answers from all of these questions, but still trust a source. For example, an opinion piece from a noted expert in a specific field could be a useful source, but chances are, they are not going to be citing sources. Information from the Centers for Disease Control website is trustworthy, but much of it doesn't have an author. You have to weigh each of these factors when making your decision.