How to do Research in the Margins
Below is a list of suggestions for how to incorporate inclusive citation practices and include minoritized scholars into your work (sometimes referred to as multiply marginalized scholars or MMU).
- Use blogs, alternative sources, social media, podcasts Though this runs counter to what you may have learned about where to find information, scholars might share research and ideas using these less formal platforms. They are a really good places to discover more reflective narratives about research. In other words, if scholarly articles address facts and data and pure scholarship, these resources offer a place for deeper discussion/critique, which is also very important.
- Do not be dismissive of lesser-known journals, open access journals, or journals with language barriers.
- Immerse yourself in areas where scholars are sharing work more informally (blogs are often the seeds of many research articles).
- Read author information either in the journal article or from an outside source (author’s website or social media are good places).
- Change result list from “Relevance” to “Date Newest” to find the most current research available not just the most cited.
- Explore new sources of news. The Butte College Library subscribes to Ethnic News Watch, Black Life in America, and CountryWatch.
- Look to professional associations (conference programs, committee lists, and membership rosters) for scholars and their interests. For example, National Hispanic Association of Nurses.
- Talk to your instructors.
- Cite oral histories. Find templates on citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers.
- Consult non-Western journals. You can use the Journals Online Project which aims to increase visibility of peer-reviewed journals in developing countries.
- Search existing collections. Look to your discipline by doing a Google search to find scholar lists. Examples include Well Read Black Girl dedicated to introducing diverse writers to new generations, #blackinstem a Twitter hashtag where you can find many black scholars in the STEM fields, CiteHER, a database of scholarly works of Black women in computing, SACNAS, an online archive of first-person stories from Hispanic/Chicano and Native American scientists, and The Syllabus Project, an open sourced Zotero library diversifying the environmental history syllabi.
Whose Shoulders Are You Standing On? Inclusive Citation Practices in Literature Reviews” by Liz Bellamy is licensed under CC-BY-NC.
