Focus on words from 1900 to the present.
Look for words that haven't been updated in a while. Words that haven't been updated since the rise of online magazines, newspapers, and databases are good candidates.
Consider words with suffixes like -ac, -er, and -ess. These are indications of word variations that may need to be updated.
Once you've selected a promising word, cross reference with the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. If the dates match, then that reference is likely current. However, if there's a discrepancy, then that's a word worth researching and updating.
The Ngram Viewer is an online search engine that charts the frequencies of any set of search strings using a yearly count of n-grams found in printed sources published between 1500 and 2019. This is a good way to get a visual representation of a word's usage over time, including when it may have first appeared in print. This can direct you to resources such as databases, newspapers, books, and magazines that will help you document appearances in print.
Now that you've selected a word and you have a sense of when it first started appearing in print, the next step is to seek out those sources in search of evidence. This involves some exploration because online access to books, magazines, and newspapers can be spotty.
Here are some likely candidates to help get your started:
Once you've exhausted online searching, move into library resources such as databases, newspaper and magazine archives. Note that these will be different than what you have access to online. The UCF Libraries subscribes to many magazine and newspaper collections that may be behind a paywall online. Likewise, we have access to MANY other print resources that you won't find online.
The pages below will guide you through those.