Due to the need to constantly update the data, the working methodology of the Observatori de Neologia is based on the activity of emptying texts with the aim of extracting new neologisms. The Observatori combines this activity with the analysis and spreading of neologisms, as well as research projects on lexical innovation. 

Emptying a text consists of detecting and extracting lexical units considered to be neological according to lexicographical criteria, that is, considering neological those words that are not recorded identically (in form, meaning and syntactic functioning) in the lexicographical exclusion corpus, currently consisting mainly of the Diccionari de la llengua catalana - DIEC2 for Catalan and the Diccionario de la Lengua Española - DLE for Spanish.

Neologisms are extracted from general press texts, but also (albeit to a lesser extent) from general magazines, oral and audiovisual texts, social network texts, etc. These sources can be extracted semi-automatically using the BUSCANEO resource, or manually.

In the year 2022, after 33 years of uninterrupted work, the Observatori de Neologia has started to work with a new and updated extraction protocol that can be consulted here, both for the extraction in Catalan (Protocol 2022 CAT) and for the extraction in Spanish (Protocol 2022 CAST).