Researching on the Internet

The internet is a source of information. You will have fun researching all the topics you need. It is effective, but you could spend a lot of time in the web without really finding what you are looking for.

Know if your subject matter is hard or soft research, or maybe a mixture of both.  You must learn the soft or hard nature of your topic so you can decide your strategy to produce the most dependable results.

• Hard research gives an account with regards to science and objective research. This is the type that needs statistics, figures, and evidence. You must look for publications of those who has the right credentials. The resources should be very reliable.
• Soft research has topics that are more cultural, opinion-based or personal. Most of the soft research authorities are writers who have practical experience in their field. These are the following sources of soft research:
  • Business blogs, or personal opinion blogs.
  • Discussions sites and forums.
  • Customer review sites.
  • Commercial sites that has advertisements.
  • Computer and technical sites.

Combination of soft and hard research is harder to work on as it requires broader research.  After gathering all your research, you need to be able to form an opinion against the strong opinions of others. An example of a hybrid research are international economy topics and politics.

Now that you have identified what kind of research you need, know what information you need to know.

• You have to type in a multiple-word search to be able to find the relevant information. For example, instead of typing “Beautiful Tourist Spots in the US,” when what you really want to know is “Beautiful Tourist Spots In Phoenix, Arizona.” You have to be specific when gathering information. Use the keywords that are important in your research.
• Use quotations marks to garner lesser hits. Example, instead of the gentlest animal, type “the gentlest animal.”
• Use the minus sign to sift other useless information. When searching for Hilton, type Hilton-Paris as you research. Otherwise, you will have information regarding Paris Hilton.
• When searching online, the search engines provide a preview of a website’s content. There is usually one or two lines of information indicated. Read the overview and if you think that the information does not fit your research, skip it. You do not have to waste your time loading useless information.
• Set your search engine to specific settings. You can set a date. This is important when you are researching for news articles. You can even set an adult content filter for all the images and videos. You can exclude explicit images from your research.
• Anyone can place an information online, but that does not mean it is correct. Watch out for the spelling and grammar mistakes. Also, look for the details of the author in the website.
• Research using your own language. If you are Japanese, use Niponggo, you will understand your research better.
• Use other sources of information like books from your local library. It has  reference resources and these sources can be from websites too.
• After gathering the information, jot down the important details like the URLs and the titles of the web pages.