Eryn Brennan
In Motion Staff Writer
The public is constantly being inundated with information about the upcoming election, some of it accurate, some of it not. With the 24-hour news cycle, the many debates, speeches, and of course, all of the information floating around on the Internet, it can be difficult to know what can be trusted. Luckily, Daytona State College’s Library Research Guide for the 2016 election has students covered.
The election guide, which is run by Technology Services Librarian Cheryl Kohen, Instruction and Reference Librarian Dustin Weeks, and Faculty Services Librarian Rachel Owens, is a way for students to gather the valuable information they need to make an informed decision about the election.
“All students, at least those who are 18 and older, should be voting, and they need information that is unbiased, that can help them make up their minds about who to vote for and the research guide is created for that purpose,” says Owens.
Kohen, Weeks and Owens organize the information by subject, proofread and continuously keep the guide updated.
It’s “just to give information about selecting, learning more about the candidates, finding unbiased news reporting, knowing where to find some information beyond a generic Google search,” explains Kohen.
In the research guide, students will find different tabs with subjects ranging from election news and the issues candidates are talking about to voter information. When you click on a tab, it brings you to a page with links to credible websites.
“We have a link called ‘News, Polls, and Issues.’ We’ll link to resources that will provide polling. For example, RealClearPolitics.com, we have a link that goes directly to the latest election polls. There’s the Gallup election polls, this is going to be very current information coming from a credible source,” says Kohen.
If a student is undecided on who they’re going to vote for, there are also links to websites that give information on the candidates, so students can see which issues a given candidate supports and if that candidate’s views align with their own.
“There’s lots of information. There’s current news, polls, different issues that are being discussed during the election; there’s links to the candidates: who’s running, who’s dropped out, who’s still there; and then links to information about each of the candidates, both the Democrat and Republican, third party candidates that are being run, primary dates,” says Weeks.
Unfortunately, politicians aren’t always known for their honesty. So if a student wants to know how much “spin” a candidate has put on a certain issue, there are links to websites that can help them discern the truth.
For example, “there’s a site called FactCheck.org and there’s one called PolitiFact.com and what these two sites do — they’re non-partisan — and what they do is they check the validity of when candidates make a statement or say something in a speech or in a debate, they will fact check those and see if they’re correct or incorrect. They do it for candidates from both parties,” Weeks says.
To access the guide, go to researchguides.daytonastate.edu.