A journalist’s handbook of tips and resources

Web searches / Breaking News / Newspaper, Blog and Media Searches / Open Records / People Finders / Backgrounding Tools / Experts, Issues / Campaign Finance / Business / Nonprofits / Government / Cops, Courts / Medical / Military / Environment / Crashes, Disasters / Libraries/ Reference/Stats / Maps / Smart Phone Apps, Software / Databases, Visuals / Writing Tools / Privacy, Security

For journalists — students and professionals alike — it’s easy to get lost in all the tipsheets, books, articles, conferences, and blogs that discuss the latest ways to conduct research and find people.

And it’s easy to forget the old-school methods that faded from memory, but might work just as well as the newest trend.

There’s a way to keep track of it all.

Create your own system, your own tipsheet, in the format that works best for you. Every time you learn about a new resource, write it down in your own web page or document. If it’s an online resource, link to it. Organize your checklists by topics, such as “People Finders” and “Backgrounding.”

Refer to your checklists when you’re working on a story. Add new tools that work. Get rid of the ones that don’t.

You can use your checklist throughout your career. It will help you remember techniques you haven’t used in years but might suddenly be valuable for the story you’re currently working on.

Web Searches and Strategies

Web strategies:

  • Tell Google to search before or after certain dates by typing before:[date] OR after:[date]. Good way to deal with a flood of information after a major news event. Can also type specific dates: “before:YYYY-MM-DD and after:YYYY-MM-DD.”
  • Internet archive: The Wayback Machine let’s you plug the url of a website or a page to see older versions of it. Also try Google’s cache feature.
  • If you need a photo that is no longer up, right click on square, save url, and paste url into the Wayback Machine. Old picture should come up.
  • The holy grail of forgotten pages is “index of.” Do a google search for that on a site to find it.
  • Web forms: Use %% or ** in a search box to pull up everything.
  • It is possible to find pages that an agency doesn’t want spiders to crawl. Type in the web site home page /robots.txt. It shows internal pages that they don’t want Google to find.
  • Fun searches: Type mashup [issue of interest] to see what kind of data crunching previous journalists have done.
  • Type filetype:kml [issue of interest] for interactive maps.
  • Google alert: Set one up whenever a new story comes up.
  • Monitor specific web pages and get an email alert if they’re altered from Visual Ping.

Google search tips from Dan Russell, a research scientist at Google:

  • intext:[keyword] Sometimes Google drops keywords from your results. Intext:[keyword] forces Google to include that word or phrase.
  • inurl:[keyword] Search result must have that word in the url of the page. Good for finding content under subdirectories of a website.
  • intitle:[keyword] Search result will have that word in the title of the page.
  • [keyword] AROUND(number) [keyword]: Useful for finding words near each other on a web page. Typing John Tedesco AROUND(3) journalism finds any mention of that mysterious name within three words of the term journalism. Useful search for terms like “grand jury” or “lawsuit” near someone’s name. Put double quotations marks around phrases and single words.
  • Number range: You can type two periods between numbers and Google will search for that range, such as: 1945..1955 war. Can use within a phrase, and you can use it without the second number to use it to go from a starting point up to infinity. Also seems to work with ..[number].
  • * for whole-word wildcards: Useful when used in conjunction with quotes to find variations of boilerplate language, such as: “how * is celebrated in *”
  • Filetype: Specifics specific file extensions, such as filetype:xls or filetype:doc, for certain types of documents.
  • Site: For searching within a particular website or domain. site:gov shows results from government websites. Site:census.gov shows results from the Census Bureau’s website.
  • Typing an asterisk,*, in a Google Map will pull up all the known locations in the area.
  • Type “[Name] is” with other keywords to see what people are saying about a person or company or topic. Another option is adding filetype:pdf or inurl:pdf for documents, and inurl.gov for official sites. More great tips at the Global Investigative Journalism Network.

Breaking News

  • archive.ph: Find webpages and social media posts that get taken down after a controversy or breaking news story erupts. Or save links to pages that might get changed or taken down in the future.
  • Check Facebook pages and Twitter feeds of the government agencies that responded to the emergency. Look for written updates and any livestream videos of news conferences. Save a copy of those videos or record them. Local TV stations often carry livestreams of press conferences, too. In the early days of a breaking story, these social media posts are often the only official source of details about what happened. Save all this material with screen grabs or other tools such as the Wayback Machine, archive.ph or SingleFile in case it’s changed or disappers. Transcription tools such as Otter and Google Pinpoint can be used to create a fairly accurate and searchable transcript of long recordings of news conferences. This saves you time so you don’t have to transcribe the comments yourself, and gives you a way to quickly search for keywords when you need to check something officials said.
  • If a person, company or other entity is suddenly all over the news, you can tell Google to search before certain dates by typing before:[date]. This is a good way to deal with the flood of information after a major news event. Example: “before:YYYY-MM-DD.”
  • NewPipe: A free, open-source Android app available on F-Droid that lets you easily download YouTube videos on your phone. This way, you can save videos about news events that might be taken down later.
  • Advanced Twitter search to conduct narrow, focused searches.
  • Listen to police and emergency radio scanners online at Broadcastify.com. Sign up for a membership to download radio archives.
  • Daily situation reports for major disasters, posted by the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
  • In San Antonio after a major fire, the San Antonio Fire Department conducts a review of what went right and what went wrong. Those reports are public and can be requested under the Texas Public Informatino Act.
  • For fires at specific companies: You can try requesting “Tier II” hazardous chemical inventory reports that are supposed to be open to the public, but Texas officials have made it more difficult to obtain them in recent years.
  • For emergencies at polluted sites: Check EPA risk management reports.
  • For dilapidated structures, check code compliance complaints.
  • Climate: Local, historical stats from the National Weather Service. Let’s you check what the weather was like on a specific day. Can also conduct similar searches quickly on Wolfram Alpha.
  • Fires: San Antonio Fire Department active calls: For fires, water rescues, etc.
  • Crashes: San Antonio Police Department traffic accidents: Includes link to map.
  • TransGuide shows road conditions in Bexar County.
  • DriveTexas.org: Interactive map of TxDOT highway conditions for all of Texas.
  • Check San Antonio street closures: Due to flooding or other reasons.
  • Flooding: San Antonio floodplain, safe route map.
  • Search Twitter with key terms such as “me” and “my” to find witnesses for breaking news stories. Great tip from Daniel Victor.

Newspaper, blog and media searches

Open Records

  • Tipsheet from the Investigative Reporters and Editors 2013 conference about how to win open-records battles. Includes tips about navigating the Texas Public Information Act.
  • Texas Attorney General web page, to search past open records opinions, see what’s available and get ideas. Type in an agency name and see what pops up.
  • Text of the Texas Public Information Act, Open Meetings Act.
  • Tapping Officials’ Secrets: Are you trying to figure out if you can access autopsy reports, personnel records or hospital records in California, Texas or any of the 48 other states? You can find out at this incredible site. Each state has an online guide to its open record and open meetings laws. Click on a state and browse through the list of topics.
  • FOIA tips from Jason Leopold of Vice News.
  • Office of Government Information Services: The official FOIA ombudsman to help citizens deal with federal agencies.
  • FOIA Online: Government website that lets you search FOIA logs at several agencies, such as the EPA.

People Finders

  • LexisNexis person locator, includes credit reporting agency header information.
  • Check filings at county clerks’ offices. Judgments, deeds, liens and other types of records are filed there. The Bexar County County Clerk’s office offers free searches for records going back decades.
  • If you have an email, plug it into Facebook search to connect it to a human being. You can also try a similar technique with LinkedIn: If you have someone’s email and want to try to find their LinkedIn profile, use this method in the url: linkedin.com/sales/gmail/profile/viewByEmail/PUTEMAILHERE. You need to be logged into LinkedIn to do this.
  • Hunter: App lets you find company emails by typing url of the organization.
  • Pipl: Searches the invisible Web by plugging name into various websites.
  • Xlek: Free people finder search
  • PeekYou: Searches the invisible Web by plugging name into various websites.
  • Zabasearch: Useful site to find addresses, phone numbers.
  • Public records search systems: Free searches but must pay for results.
  • Spokeo: Generates profiles from a variety of sources. Free and paid search.
  • Spokeo’s reverse email search lets you look up the name behind an email.
  • Voter registration records.
  • Driver’s license info.
  • Appraisal District property search, shows owners actual address.
  • Unclaimed property: Can check known addresses for people on Comptroller’s website.
  • Bexar County web app for criminal, civil and probate cases: Single search to find a variety of cases.
  • Marriage license search can help you find current and former spouses, dates of birth.
  • County court, district court, and federal court indexes.
  • City Directories, reverse look ups, old phone books are on file at city libraries.
  • Phone directories at agency or business.
  • Phone numbers: Anywho.com
  • Ancestry Search: Site directed specifically towards those doing genealogical research but does link to the Social Security Death Index.
  • Death records: A collection of links and instructions for requesting death certificate information.
  • The Church of Christ offers its genealogy searches at www.familysearch.org.
  • Recruit ‘Em: Easy-to-use interface that allows you search profiles on Twitter, LinkedIn and other sites.

Backgrounding

  • Get correct spelling for complete name, date of birth, address, associated companies, family members, etc. Start doing parallel searches on those people, entities and addresses too.
  • Parallel backgrounding: As other names affiliated with subject come up, look up what they’re up to. Check articles they’re mentioned in.
  • Good way to run Internet searches for people: Type this example, [“john OR jonathan tedesco” OR “tedesco, john OR jonathan″ OR “john * tedesco” OR “jonathan * tedesco”], to deal with middle names or two-word last names, name variations and pages where last name precedes the first name. Wildcards can be used in phrases in Google searches, which is a huge help.
  • Unclaimed property: Can check known addresses for people on Comptroller’s website.
  • Check filings at county clerks’ offices. Judgments, deeds, liens and other types of records are filed there. The Bexar County County Clerk’s office offers free searches for records going back decades.
  • Bexar County web app: There’s a search to find both criminal and civil cases.
  • Do focused, creative web searches: intext:[name] plus terms such as “grand jury” or “lawsuit” or “indicted” can lead to interesting sites. Try using Google’s “AROUND” function to narrow results: [name] AROUND(3) “grand jury.”
  • Try searching for an individual with Google Image search, see what pops up.
  • Try Googling any known usernames. If not known, try initial of first name, then last name.
  • Search LinkedIn by email: If you have someone’s email and want to try to find their LinkedIn profile, use this method in the url: linkedin.com/sales/gmail/profile/viewByEmail/PUTEMAILHERE. You need to be logged into LinkedIn to do that.
  • Searching for primary documents: Run searches on DocumentCloud, the Government Attic and Scribd, you’ll never know what you find.
  • Pipl: Searches the invisible Web by plugging name into various websites.
  • PeekYou: Searches the invisible Web by plugging name into various websites.
  • Spokeo: Generates profiles from a variety of sources. Free and paid search.
  • Newspaper/Blog Searches
  • Check the professional or licensing boards of their profession. For example, the Texas Real Estate Commission has thick files on licensed real estate agents.
  • For businesses: Check consumer complaints filed with Attorney General’s office. Can often find contact information for consumers.
  • For businesses: Better Business Bureau.
  • Federal tax court, search for keywords.
  • Voter Registration records, can get date of birth.
  • Search profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter
  • PublicData.com, LexisNexis: Track down public records.
  • Vital Check: Paid site for vital records such as birth and death certificates.
  • Public records by location.
  • Driver’s license records, can get date of birth.
  • Motor vehicle records, to see asset ownership and find addresses.
  • Court files and police records: Probate, criminal (also check with San Antonio magistrate’s office for recent arrests), civil, Pacer, DPS conviction search and sex offender search. Bankruptcy files and tax court records contain personal financial info. Check police calls made to subject’s address. Can contact Texas Department of Correction to check time served. For other states, try Courthouse Direct. Check the federal inmate locator to find out whether the person ever served time in a federal prison and when they were released.
  • Searchable archive of Pacer records: The RECAP archive is a project to open up federal court documents to the public and make them easier to access.
  • County deed records: key word search on Bexar County page. Can find judgments and tax liens, among other records. For other states, try Courthouse Direct. On same site, assumed name search can lead to home address, and marriage license search can lead to date of birth.
  • Court depositions can lead to date of birth, family members.
  • County appraisal districts, for property ownership.
  • Birth certificates.
  • Obits: Legacy.com. Helpful way to find relatives.
  • Who is John Doe?
  • Patents. Also check Google patents advanced search.
  • “Index to Marquis Who’s Who Publications,” includes publications such as “Who’s Who in America.” There’s also a “Complete Who’s Marquis Who’s Who Plus,” a CD Rom product. Marquis provides a search service for a fee.
  • Gale Research’s “Biography and Genealogy Master Index,” or BGMI. A collection of Who’s whos. It indexes over 8 million biographical sketches from 2,000 editions and volumes of 700 source publications.
  • H.W. Wilson Company’s “Biography Index,” an index of articles in over 2,700 periodicals.
  • Social Security Death Benefits Index. Confirm whether someone died.
  • Merit Systems Protection Board: Good way to find federal whistleblowers.
  • SEC records show stock holdings.
  • Department of Labor form LM-30 lists business dealings of labor union official’s family members.
  • Robert B. Slocum’s “Biographical Dictionaries and Related Works.” It describes 16,000 source publications. Good if you know a subject’s background.
  • Social registries for prominent families. “Vanity” directories.
  • State government handbooks for state legislators and officials.
  • College class anniversary directories.
  • Books written by family members.
  • Various archives might have files on a subject. Presidential archives, for example, often have documents related to political figures and people who meet them.
  • Vertical files in libraries often have historical articles on a given topic or person.
  • Check campaign contributions, personal financial disclosures, if relevant.
  • Catalogue of federal documents, freakin’ awesome. Will show you which federal depository keeps the documents.
  • Specific professions:
  • Lawyers: www.texasbar.com — Find Texas lawyers and find out if they’ve been disciplined for infractions. Can also try Martindale Hubbell.
  • Realtors: Ask for licensing file for real estate agents from the Texas Real Estate Commission.
  • Doctors: Texas medical board; www.searchpointe.com.
  • Pilots: Landings.com, FAA

Experts, issues

Campaign Finance

  • LegiStorm: Look up trips and other disclosures. Awesome site.
  • Center for Responsive Politics: This campaign contributions site details how much candidates have raised, how much they’ve spent, and how much cash they have on hand. Also learn about the source of funds, who the contributors are, and what industries give the most.
  • Vote Smart: A nice site that lets you search past speeches of politicians.
  • Texas Ethics Commission, for state office holders. This page has other reports, such as lobbying records. Center for Public Integrity has financial disclosure forms for Texas Reps and Senators.
  • Federal Election Commission: The official FEC website.
  • Former site of FEC Info: This site is one of the most up-to-date campaign finance sites available. It was founded by a former FEC aide.
  • Texas Secretary of State Elections: Find information on Texas political candidates and election results.
  • San Antonio campaign finance web page, searchable.

Business

Nonprofits

Government

Federal

  • GPO Multiple database search, useful for finding government reports.
  • Catalogue of federal documents, freakin’ awesome. Will show you which federal depository keeps the documents.
  • Searching for primary documents: Run searches on DocumentCloud, the Government Attic and Scribd, you’ll never know what you find.
  • Search Senate financial disclosures.
  • LegiStorm: Look up trips and other disclosures. Awesome site.
  • U.S. Government Manual: “The Government Manual is a regularly updated special edition of the Federal Register. Its contents include leadership tables and descriptions of agency activities and programs of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of Government, as well as activities and programs of quasi-official agencies and international organizations in which the United States participates as a member.”
  • The Congressional Directory: Contains short biographies of members of Congress and their committee memberships.
  • Federal Information Center at www.info.gov indexes government agencies.
  • U.S. Code Annotated, searchable index. “The United States Code is a consolidation and codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States.”
  • Browse the Code of Federal Regulations.
  • Federal Register, searchable.
  • Declassified Documents Reference System, for FOIA. Also check out descriptions of records that are available at each agency. Found in Federal Register. The Office of Budget and Management has an agency-by-agency inventory of forms and procedures by which information is gathered from the public.
  • GAO reports: “GAO provides Congress, the heads of executive agencies, and the public with timely, fact-based, non-partisan information that can be used to improve government and save taxpayers billions of dollars.”
  • IGNet: Links to 60 federal Offices of Inspectors General. Provides public access to IG reports on a number of topics.
  • “Index to U.S. Governmental Periodicals.”
  • National Technical Information Service, for periodical info and government reports.
  • Presidential libraries: Offer a treasure trove of archival material.
  • Federal Contracts: Check the Federal Procurement System.
  • Vote Smart: A nice site that lets you search past speeches of politicians.
  • National Archives: Vast historical resources at the federal level.
  • Merit Systems Protection Board: Good way to find federal whistleblowers.
  • U.S. Government Subscriptions Catalog. The bookstore of the federal government.
  • Congressional Hearings.
  • Voter Information Services: Evaluations of individual congresspeople from a number of organizations. See who opposes or supports various interest groups.

Texas, states

Local

Cops, Courts

Medical

Military

  • Media requests for retired military veterans: Fax request on company letterhead with any information we have about veteran to 314-801-0763. State “Media request” on letter on on coverage page.
  • Finding personnel: Tipsheet from Poynter
  • Air Force Personnel Locator: HQAFPC/MSIMDL 550 C Street West, Suite 50, Randolph, AFB: 565-2660. Provide full name and soc. Number. Can also provide a Certificate of Record of Military Service to substantiate service. (P. 4 ILLB)
  • Army Personnel Locator: Send letter to Army World Wide Locator, U.S. Army Enlisted Records & Evaluation Center, 8899 E. 56th St., Indianapolis, IN 46249-5301, 703-325-3732. Online at www.erec.army.mil/wwl. Certficiate of service request can be made to U.S. Army Enlisted Records & Evaluation Center, ATTN: PCRE-RP, Indianapolis, IN, 46249-5301.
  • Former military personnel: National Personnel Records Center: 9700 Page Avenue, St. Louis, MO, 63132-5200 . 314-801-0764, Write Media Request.
  • DEERS – “Defense Enrollment Eilgibility Reporting System.” How the gov. knows who’s in the military. From California: 800-334-4162. Alask and Hawaii: 800-527-5602. All other states: 800-538-9552

Environment

Crashes, Disasters

Libraries

Using libraries efficiently – p. 29 of the “Reporter’s Handbook”

  • Tap the Library of Congress’ search headings.
  • After finding a useful book, bottom lines of the title page should be checked for a “tracing,” the subject heading assigned to that title. Can find other books that way.
  • Browsing leads to unexpected finds.
  • With a specific book, a citation search can tell you who has cited it and lead to more sources.
  • Bibliographies.
  • Library of Congress.
  • National Archives
  • Portal to Texas History: Searchable archive of primary documents and old newspaper clippings you can download. Great for historical documents
  • Finding guides: Used to find pertinent material, finding guides are sometimes posted online, or archives will send them to you. Check out WorldCat, a library catalogue that includes 50,000 finding guides.
  • Searching for primary documents: Run searches on DocumentCloud, the Government Attic and Scribd, you’ll never know what you find.
  • GPO catalogue: A searchable database of government publications.
  • Highwire Press: A database of peer-reviewed journals.
  • Congressional Research Service. CRS, a research arm of Congress, provides legislators and congressional aides excellent non-partisan briefing papers on many complex issues. CRS does not make its reports available to the public, but many reports are online. CRS environmental-related reports are available through the National Library for the Environment.
  • Congressional Quarterly.
  • Newsletters search. “Newsletters in Print.” (own) “Oxbridge Directory of Newsletters.”
  • Archives: Check the Archives Portal for locations. Presidential archives for bigwigs and National Security Archives for declassified info. Texas Archives offer indexes, and UTSA at its downtown office offer local searches. National Archives search, easy and awesome. Finding guides: Used to find pertinent material, finding guides are sometimes posted online, or archives will send them to you. Check out WorldCat, a library catalogue that includes 50,000 finding guides.
  • UTSA archives
  • NTPA: “National Trade and Professional Associations” directory. Located on second floor, section 61 of main library.
  • “Research Centers Directory,” located on second floor, section 61 of main library. Awesome.
  • Loompaniacs Unlimited, offers weird publications.
  • “Directories in Print.”
  • City Directories.
  • “Encyclopedia of Associations.”
  • “Who Knows What.”
  • “Newsletters in Print.”
  • “Who’s Who in America.”
  • Standard Periodical Directory, by Oxford Communications.
  • Ulrich’s International Periodicals Directory.
  • Newsletter Publishers Foundation.
  • National Trade and Professional Associations of the United States, and State and Regional Associations of the United States, by Columbia Books.
  • Dissertations and thesis, found through Dissertation Abstracts International or Masters Abstracts International. Also try digital library at http://www.ndltd.org/.
  • Phone directories at company or business.

Reference, Stats

  • Statscheck: Ask an expert for help with a statistical question question.
  • Weather archives: Wofram Alpha can be used to find past weather conditions. Example: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weather+in+buda,+texas+on+June+12,+2017
  • Wolfram|Alpha: Type your search query, and Wolfram|Alpha finds public data about it and presents the information in an easy-to-digest format. Links to sources are the the bottom of the results.
  • C-Span archives: Searchable database of C-Span coverage.
  • IPL2: Research site set up by reference librarians.
  • “Statistics Sources,” book
  • National Safety Council for stats on injuries, deaths in United States.
  • National Bureau of Economic Research: Carries economic time series for the U.S., United Kingdom, France, Germany, and a macro history database with monthly and quaterly analysis. Covers construction, employment, money, commodity prices, foreign trade from pre-World War I to the end of World War II. Data is ASCII and can be downloaded in DBMS format.
  • U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics: Data and reports on transportation safety for aircraft, automobiles, bicycles, pedestrians, etc., including the FAA Statistical Handbook on Aviation.

Maps and Geography

Smart Phone Apps, Software

  • CalyxOS: “CalyxOS is an Android mobile operating system that puts privacy and security into the hands of everyday users.”
  • Joplin: An open-source note-taking app that lets you categorize and tag your notes and documents. Offers excellent search features and multiple ways to sync your files across devices. Combine with Syncthing to secure your notes from third parties.
  • Bromite: A privacy-friendly browser for Android that blocks ads and doesn’t track your browsing history.
  • SimpleTask: A privacy-friendly to-do list app that relies on the todo.xt system. You can use Syncthing to sync your tasks across devices.
  • ClearScanner and Genius Scan: Scan documents to your smart phone as jpeg or pdf files.
  • Google Voice: For text, voice mail and phone calls. Get your own Google Voice number to give out to strangers so you can safeguard your personal cell phone number.
  • Broadcastify: Checks for live streams of emergency channels in your area and lets you listen to police and emergency radio scanners.
  • F-Droid: An alternative app store for Android that offers thousands of open-source apps.
  • xBrowserSync: A privacy-friendly browser extension that syncs bookmarks on multiple devices. Allows you to tag your bookmarks and conduct keyword searches for them.
  • Bitwarden: Free, open-source password manager. Affordable premium service offers file sharing.
  • Secure messaging apps: Signal, Session, Element and Briar all offer encrypted communications that can’t be read by third parties — including the app administrators.

Databases, Visuals

  • Use Google’s site: and filetype: operator to find spreadsheets, forms and other types of files that hint at the kind of data an agency keeps.
  • Data USA: Searchable archive of government data.
  • Data.World: Searchable data library that lets you collaborate with colleagues.
  • Wolfram|Alpha: Type your search query, and Wolfram|Alpha finds public data about it and presents the information in an easy-to-digest format. Links to sources are the the bottom of the results.
  • Keep an eye out for interesting statistics that might reveal the existence of a unique database.
  • Google Charts: “Google chart tools are powerful, simple to use, and free.”
  • Chartbuilder: Quartz app that helps you build a data viz.
  • Timeline JS: Easily create an interactive timeline based on a Google spreadsheet.
  • Timemapper: Built on Timeline JS, with mapping capabilities.
  • Network analysis tool: Visual Investigative Scenarios lets you build and share interactive networks.
  • Chartblocks: Create interactive charts, share them with iframe embeds or on social media.
  • Canva: Create designs in an easy-to-use interface.
  • Juxtapose: Embed a slider to compare two images.
  • Soundcite: Embed sound clips in the body text of your online story.
  • Plot.ly: Free data viz app for charts.
  • Pixel: Free stock photos.

Writing Tools

  • LanguageTool: An open-source, grammar-checking app with a strong privacy policy.
  • Etymology Online: Look up the origin and history of words.
  • Tip of my tongue: Useful site that helps you find words you can’t quite remember.
  • The Duration Calendar: Figure out the time difference between two dates.
  • Use reverse dictionaries when you know how to describe something, but don’t know the name for it.
  • Creative Commons: Copyright-free material for publications such as blogs.
  • Visual Thesaurus: Shows how words are related.
  • Poynter’s Writing tips: Here and here
  • Define operator: Type define:[term] in Google to find obscure meanings of all kinds of words, including memes that aren’t in any dictionary.
  • Synonym finder, Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com. Merriam-Webster dictionary and thesaurus.
  • CryptPad: An open-source alternative to Google Docs. Your files are encrypted and can only be viewed by you and the people you want to share your documents with.
  • Online transcription services: otranscribe.com lets you slow down or pause recordings and write transcripts right in your browser. Trint, Otter, Temi and Google Pinpoint transcribe recordings and let you click on the text to listen to that point of the audio. Useful when you have long recordings, such as public meetings, and you need a usable transcript to quickly find points of interest. Avoid uploading sensitive information to third-party services.

Privacy and Security

  • Signal: Encrypted text messages, file sharing and phone calls.
  • ProtonMail: Switzerland-based service that encrypts your emails and files.
  • Wormhole app: Free, open-source file-sharing service that encrypts large files and deletes them after you set an expiration date.
  • Send: Another free, open-source file-sharing service that allows you to upload files and share them. The files are encrypted.
  • Simple PDF: A privacy-friendly PDF editor that works in your web browser.
  • Syncthing: Free, open-source Dropbox alternative that lets you securely sync folders and files between multiple devices directly, without having to go through a middle man.
  • Sync.com: A Dropbox competitor that offers encrypted file sharing and storage. Sync.com is closed source but the company says it has no access to your encrypted files.
  • Bitwarden: Free, open-source password manager. Affordable premium service offers file sharing.
  • xBrowserSync: A privacy-friendly browser extension that syncs bookmarks on multiple devices. Allows you to tag your bookmarks and conduct keyword searches for them.