Research Notes 24.5
2021 Recap
Happy New Year’s Eve! I hope you are doing well and that you have a safe and healthy end to 2021. I wanted to pop in here briefly to recap the year in research notes and mention what the new year holds for the newsletter.
In 2022 I will be focusing on one topic per month. The pre-research newsletter will introduce the topic with a brief overview and discuss the research strategy that will be used. The post-research newsletter will give you all the information found on the monthly topic with citations galore. I am excited to get back to the roots of research and really dig in on specific topics each month. The schedule will still be bi-weekly, but in 2022 I will be posting on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of each month.
As readers, I value your opinions and would love to research topics that interest you as well, so please be sure to send any topics you would like to see in the newsletter to the comment section!
New year recap
In the inaugural year of the newsletter, 24 issues were produced with varying degrees of interest. The research year ran from December 2020 through November 2021, kicking off with a special voting edition pre-issue in November 2020.
In the first official issue, which I have referenced many times since I presented the CRAAP method of vetting sources. This was a strong start to the research year with a video reference for the method. The next issue dealt with the Electoral College and the problems we faced in November 2020. In issue three, published just 2 days before the insurrection, I looked at bias and disinformation and followed up at the end of January with an issue on deconstructing hoaxes and conspiracy theories. These two issues were informative in a way that I didn’t realize would be necessary at the beginning of January and refocused the newsletter in a way I had not anticipated.
In February I talked about the sources I use to do my research and the quest for better sources. Issue 6 also included information about the Big Lie being touted by Trumpists following the 2020 election. March brought posts on US History and lobbying, the one year mark of COVID and my obsession with research in Sociology, specifically religion and society.
In issue 9, I looked at dismantling the white supremacist patriarchy while, in issue 10 I did a deep dive into the topic of minimum wage. Issue 11 was an analysis of policing in America and issue 12 was a revisit of countering white supremacy along with intellectual freedom and the need for critical thinking in education. In June, at the halfway point in the year, I wrote about movements and action at the individual and community levels.
For the second half of the year, I kicked off July with a post on patriotism and briefly returned to the roots of the newsletter by discussing how to find good sources online. In August I looked at the fallout of structural racisim in the United States and provided a list of resources for future reference. Issue 19 discussed the history of labor day and unions while I revisited old posts from the hippiegrrl media universe in issue 20.
For the final four issues of the newsletter year, I discussed choice, toxic masculinity, fallacies, and the United States of myth making.
Oh what a year 2021 was! I hope that you and yours are doing well and that 2022 will be an upswing year for us all. See you in a couple weeks and please pass along the newsletter to anyone you think might be interested in reading in the new year. I appreciate each and every one of you and hope that we can grow this community even more in 2022.