Journalist's Toolbox Update: May 14, 2012

Election 2012: Patchwork Nation, from the Jefferson Institute, divides America's 3,141 counties into 12 community types based characteristics, such as income level, racial composition, employment and religion. It also breaks the nation's 435 congressional districts into nine categories, using the same data points and clustering techniques. Another helpful tool is ProPublica's PAC Track, which helps you follow contributors and spending with political action committees. Find more resources on the Politics/Elections page.

Add Politics: The Associated Press Stylebook has created an online glossary of election terms. The National Institute on Money in State Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization revealing the influence of campaign money on state-level elections and public policy in all 50 states, has a comprehensive and verifiable campaign-finance database available for free on its site. Poligraft is a Sunlight Foundation site that adds political context to news stories by scanning news articles you enter for the names of donors, corporations, lobbyists and politicians and shows how they are connected by contributions.

Gas Prices: You can track changing gas prices with several Toolbox resources. Mapquest has a page to track gas prices in your area. Use resources in the Toolbox's Business Resources section to track the housing market , gas prices, food costs and other economic issues. Related Resources: Personal Finance and Labor sections.

Severe Weather: Covering the tornadoes and severe storms? Use resources on the Toolbox's Weather page.

Plagiarism: Use the Copyscape Plagiarism Checker to search for copies of your page on the web. Just type in your site's web address and the search tool finds duplicate copies of your page's content on the web.

G8/NATO Summits: The G8 and NATO summits will be held in Camp David and Chicago, respectively, May 18-21. Use resources on the Toolbox's Global Reporting Tools page to cover the summits. We'll be adding more resources weekly between now and the start of the summits.

Copy Editing: As newsrooms lay off copy editors, it's important to look back at Craig Silverman's year in errors. Think copy editing and staffing are not important? Look at some of these mistakes. Also, EditTeach.org is a site rich with resources for copy editors and those who teach it. Tips sheets, quizzes, even Dow Jones copy editing practice tests. The Grammar Guide also has some excellent online quizzes. All three sites are great teaching tools.

Journalist Arrests: SavetheNews.org has built a database to track journalists arrested covering Occupy protests around the world.

Journalism Jobs: Use News Nerd Jobs to sort through a great list of news developer jobs. MediaJobPod.org is tailored to college students looking for multimedia jobs and internships. Watch imbedded videos from professionals on how to approach the job hunt, interview, write cover letters, etc. If you are interested in Web reporting/production or TV production, take advantage of the advice on this free site, developed by journalism instructors at Kent State University. Find more job-hunting resources, organized by specific media and positions, on the Toolbox's Jobs page.

Photojournalism: Check out Getty Images' Reportage Blog. The Tumblr site provides great images, interviews with photojournalists, links and other resources. It's a must-bookmark, as is Error Level Analysis, which allows you to enter the web address of an online photo and it analyzes how much Photoshop work has been done to the photo.

Twitter Resources: Twitter for Newsrooms features resources from the team at Twitter on how to integrate it into daily coverage. Also, the KDMC Twitter for Journalists page offers helpful tips and links. Find more resources on the Toolbox's Twitter page.

Maps: SocMap.com is a new location-based data mapping tool. It's free on the Web and you can do all kinds of location-based journalism with it. You also can look up newspapers on this global map: NewspaperMap.com.

Federal Government: Here's a helpful tool: Directory of All Congressional Twitter Handles.

School Violence: SafeKids.com has a helpful list of tips and resources on cyberbullying.

Stock Markets: Use tools in the Business Resources section to track the daily changes in the markets.

Crime: CrimeMapping, developed by The Omega Group, is intended to help law enforcement agencies throughout North America provide the public with valuable information about recent crime activity in their neighborhood. Start with an image map to access crime data by state, then drill down to the neighborhood/ZIP code level.

Online Journalism Resources: We've added dozens of new resources to the Toolbox's Twitter Resources, Mobile Journalism and Online Journalism pages.

Journalism Research Tool: Journalist's Resource is website dedicated to promoting knowledge-based
 reporting and is targeted to journalism educators. It's a project of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education. A great research tool that features some great public policy studies

Mobile Journalism: USA.gov: Mobile Apps is a handy list of which government agencies have mobile apps and mobile Web sites. Great quick-reference. Also check out this new blog: Mobile Journalism Tools by Will Sullivan at The Reynolds Institute. Find more on the Toolbox's Mobile Journalism page.

Data Visualization: The Google Public Data Explorer makes large datasets easy to explore, visualize and communicate. As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand.

Broadcasting: Find the correct pronunciations of newsmaker names at The Name Engine. Another great resource is the EarIt Demo, which allows you to roll over a name or word and get the correct pronunciation.

Writing With Numbers: SensibleUnits.com converts measurements, distances, weights, etc. into objects to which a reader can relate. Weird Converter is great for analyzing numbers and coming up with odd facts and figures for stories. It's great for comparing sizes, weights and gives the reader some perspective. Find more resources in the Toolbox's Writing With Numbers section.

Covering People With Disabilities: You'll find hundreds of resources on the Disabilities page.

Jobs: The Toolbox's Jobs section features dozens of journalism job databases and search resources. They're organized by news, sports, photography, PR, etc.

Teaching Tools: Many of you who use this site train your newsrooms and classrooms how to do online research: College Media, High School Journalism, Design, Broadcast Journalism, Ethics, Writing, Reporting Tools, Writing with Numbers, Photojournalism and Copy Editing.

Reporting Tools: Reporting Tools, Phone/E-Mail/Maps Directories, Search Engines, Expert Sources, Investigative, Form 990s, Public Records, Ethics, Check Domain Names, General Research and Writing With Numbers.

Editing and Fact-Checking Resources: The Toolbox's Copy Editing page has several new resources. The American Copy Editors Society has assembled a collection of 49 online quizzes about everything from AP Style and usage to Iraq and the Middle East. Related Resources: Copy Editing, General Research, History, Domain Sites and Writing With Numbers.

Writing with Statistics: Test your skills with IRE's interactive math quiz. After you've taken the test, click on the link at the bottom of the page to find out how to arrive at the correct answers. You'll find more resources like this one on the Writing with Numbers page. Related Resources: Spreadsheets, Business Resources, Personal Finance and Federal Government: Census Data.

Student Resources: College and high school students will find many helpful Toolbox resources for researching papers, reporting and more: Reporting Tools, Public Records, History, Ethics and Copy Editing.