Defining, finding, and exploring trends for an English 101 class at Bristol Community College.

1. DEFINING, FINDING, &
EXPLORING TRENDS
A Guide
By
Emily Brown

2. WHAT IS ATREND?
According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the
English Language a trend is:
1.
A general tendency or course of events: a warming
trend.
2.
Current style; vogue: the latest trend in fashion.
3.
The general direction of something: the river's southern
trend.
intr.v. trend•ed, trend•ing, trends
Trend. (2011). In The American Heritage dictionary of the English language. Retrieved from
http://bristolcc.edu:2048/login?qurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.credoreference.com%2Fcontent%2Fen
try%2Fhmdictenglang%2Ftrend%2F0

3. FINDING IDEAS FORTRENDS
The News
Reporters are often in tune with what’s
happening in popular culture.
Checking out news sources would be a
good place to start.
Social Media
What are people talking about? Search
social media outlets for key terms and
ideas for trends.
Radio
Reporting on the radio is just as up-to-
date as newspaper reporting. Check
out NPR or other radio stations to see
what trends might be being discussed.

4. AWORD OF CAUTION
When using the internet to
investigate trends, you need to
pay attention to authorship. Who
is writing the story? Is there bias?
Why does the story exist?
You are investigating if your trend
is being discussed.
See if your trend exists. Quote
the experts, not the talking
heads.

5. TWITTER AND SOCIAL
UNREST AND PROTEST
This is the trend I will be exploring through news outlets, social media, and radio sources.

6. THE NEWS
Finding trends using news outlets.

7. BUZZFEED
Search Buzzfeed to see if your
trend is being discussed.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/sear
ch
Use the search bar to explore
your trend on buzzfeed.

8. NEWYORKTIMES
Search the NewYorkTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/
Remember, you have free
access to older issues of the
NewYorkTimes through BCC
Libraries.

9. THE BOSTON GLOBE
Search the Boston Globe:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/
Remember, you have free
access to older issues of the
Boston Globe through BCC
Libraries.

10. SOCIAL MEDIA
Search Social Media outlets for ideas on trends. Remember, though, authorship is very important
to investigate when using social media.

11. TWITTER
SearchTwitter:
https://twitter.com/search-advanced
Remember to be cautious of authorship
and authority.
Of course you have to be extremely
careful when searching social media
platforms.
Since many legitimate news
organizations useTwitter you may find
credible stories.
One of the links I found was to a map of
tweets mentioning Ferguson compiled by
the Daily Mail, a UK newspaper.

12. RADIO
News reporting also happens on the radio. Checking a news radio stations website might lead to informative stories
about your trend.
As with any news outlet, be wary of bias.

13. NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO
Search NPR:
http://www.npr.org/
The search box is on the upper right hand
corner.
When I searched NPR I found stories
about twitter and protests from both
2014 and 2011.

14. CONCLUSION
Thus concludes our exploration of news sources and social media for articles on trends.