Research Toolkit

This page is meant to help you explore your research topic and ultimately organize a research poster that effectively communicates how your environmental hazard affects human health and how that impact shows up in San Diego.

Table of Contents

Search Tools (Free and Accessible)

• Google Scholar — the most accessible academic search engine for fellows; good starting point for finding peer-reviewed articles

• PubMed  — the standard database for health and medical research; slightly more technical but excellent for the science section of the posters

Environmental and Health Data Tools

• CalEnviroScreen 5.0 Web App — California's environmental health screening tool

• EJSCreen Fact Sheet — the federal equivalent to CalEnviroScreen, useful for comparing San Diego data to national trends

• CDC's National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network | Home  — accessible data on specific environmental hazards and health outcomes by region

• World Health Organization (WHO) Fact sheets — clear, well-organized summaries on topics like air quality, climate change, and water sanitation; written for a general audience, which makes them a good entry point before diving into peer-reviewed literature

Local and Community Sources

• San Diego County Health & Human Services Agency — local health data and reports

• Environmental Health Coalition Reports — community-generated data specific to Barrio Logan, National City, and City Heights

• San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) — local demographic and infrastructure data

• City of San Diego Climate Action Plan— local policy documents relevant to the policy/response section of posters

Grey Literature Sources

• EPA.gov — government reports and fact sheets

• WHO.int  — global health and environment reports

• Local nonprofit and advocacy organization websites — e.g., Environmental Health Coalition, Tierras Indígenas Community Land Trust — for community-grounded reports and testimonies

Citation and Writing Help

• Purdue OWL® Online Writing Lab — free, clear guide to APA citation format, useful for fellows learning to cite sources for the first time

• Zotero or Google Scholar's "Cite" Button below each search result — simple tools that auto-generate citations

Data Visualization Sources

• BioRender: easily make high quality cartoons/figures of biological systems (ex: cells, pathways, anatomy) - free trial

• QGIS: make high-quality maps for free (similar to ArcGIS)

• TechGraphOnline: make figures and plot your data online free (instead of doing it in Excel/Google Sheets)

• Data Viz Guide: quick data viz tips and tricks, lots of helpful resources for making figures more effective and readable

A Literature Review is a thorough, well-formatted record or compilation of all of the sources you used and/or referenced in your research topic. It should feature complete citations in APA format for each source (this is the standard citation format for scientific journals) in alphabetical order.  Also, write a few sentences below each citation that illustrate that source's contents and its degree of relevance to the current project/topic. The Literature Review is a great way to compile the main conceptual information needed before or while beginning work on your project, and it is also a great tool to refer back to if you feel like citing a particular source more than once or if you want to eliminate a minor source from your references list. 

Raw data collection often yields numbers - percentages, death tolls, frequencies, etc. - that differ from location to location and from collection date to collection date. Such differences may reveal patterns, and patterns may then be highlighted on figures (e.g. statistical significance, growing number of 'X' case from [year] to [year]) and eventually used to draw conclusions. Taking a reader through each of these steps in your research paper/poster - from your research question to your methods, to your results and figures, then to your discussion - is a core step of a good research paper or poster. Readers want to be engaged and learn something new by reading your work, and they will greatly appreciate a good story to remember your main points by. 

Data Storytelling 101: A Beginner's Guide To Turning Insights Into Action

How to Tell a Story with Data - Harvard Business School 

Because a poster provides a limited amount of space for information and must be presentable in a limited amount of time, efficiency is king! Having a manuscript off of which to base each section of a poster is incredibly helpful with determining what information is necessary for readers to understand the main ideas of your research and what information is better left for those with more time to read your manuscript or who are particularly interested in your work already.  As for your poster,  there ought to be enough figures summarizing the data that readers are not overwhelmed with large blocks of text alone. Too many figures or too much text can make a poster dull and difficult to read, but this balance is difficult to gauge if you do not have experience making and preparing posters. Start with only the text information and figures that are absolutely necessary for your audience to understand the main point, and with the advice of peers, family, or mentors, determine what additional information is acceptable to add to the poster while keeping audiences interested. You should be able to deliver a full presentation of your poster in just 2-3 minutes; you may even want to shoot for less if you anticipate lots of Q&A. 

How to Make an Effective Poster - UC Davis Undergraduate Research Center