What are some tips and tricks to help in doing online research about a particular topic?
What are some tips and tricks to help in doing online research about a particular topic?
This is one of my goals of the year - to better myself at doing online research. I wish to be able to get more precise (?) results for what I am searching. Idk if I'm making myself clear here but I'd greatly appreciate any tips that you may have for me. Thanks in advance!
Edit: As pointed out in responses so far, my issue lies in not knowing how to properly ask the internet the question which I want answered. It's mostly a discussion about precise legal point that I seek in a judgement or academic article.
In order to be precise you need first to have general knowledge of the thing you’re looking for, otherwise you won’t know what to search and where.
Start with Wikipedia. It’s free, easily navigable, aims at neutrality and is generally accessible for the layperson. Get a general overview of a topic - its subelements, its controversies, its main proponents and its history. Check out a few of the linked sites if you’d like.
Take keywords, titles, names, dates; use these to search Google Scholar, if it pertains to science or law. Look at academic institutions: if a professor’s works are cited, see if they’re available on the site or a talk they gave is on Youtube. If you are part of an academic institution, even better: you have Scopus and Jstor to play with. Check out torrents: many people seed entire libraries of textbooks.
Bear in mind that precision, in and of itself, may not be what you’re looking for, and can take more time than you might want to take. A datum point is a concentrated dot of paint, but if your aim is to fill a canvas, watercolors might be more the ticket.
Locating primary sources is a pretty big deal. There are lots of organizations that publish data online — government agencies, research groups, etc. Want to know if violent crime, COVID, or rainfall is increasing or decreasing in your area? You probably don't want to be reading a politics article, but rather finding a relevant data source.
However, it's important to understand what the data source is saying, too. For example, antivaxers often refer to VAERS data, but grossly misunderstand or misrepresent what it means.
I sort of disagree based on the phrasing of the question. It sounds like someone who is a novice and independent researcher. They are probably not in school or otherwise have a lot of guidance. Which is a situation I appreciate because I've been there before and I'll be there again in the future for sure. :)
It's possible that diving deep into primary sources right away could cause a lot of confusion and overwhlem. As a person who doesn't really understand stats, I personally find I can be misled by scientific publications where the math is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I just can't evaluate if the methods used are appropriate.
If I am interested in a topic of academic research like science or history, I find it better to locate a reputable source providing an overview. Like a book, or as many people have also mentioned, wikipedia. Then I dip into the primary sources if they are intriguing. But I would primarily rely on subject experts to guide interpretation. If I find that one seems to be offbase, then I find someone else who has a different viewpoint. Or look at blogs or forums where educated people are debating.
Maybe OP will ask a more specific question with more context so all of don't have to do so much conjecture to answer. :) Everyone is assuming OP wants to look into some sort of academic subject. Maybe they want to learn about different ways to patch holes in their blue jeans. Who knows.
Learning how to ask questions is part of learning how to find answers. :)
It sounds like someone who is a novice and independent researcher. They are probably not in school or otherwise have a lot of guidance.
You are right on point here. Having no access to proper guidance and support that usually is quite expensive for me, I've to resort to free or pirated resources available online. But even there I struggle to find exactly what I'm looking for.
But I would primarily rely on subject experts to guide interpretation.
These, for me, are case laws or interpretation by jurists. But finding that exact case which discusses my precise question is the tricky part. I'm aware that quite a few of these case laws are available online. Just a bit beyond my search for now.
Learning how to ask questions is part of learning how to find answers.
This is quite helpful. In a manner, this is the essence of my query here. How do I ask questions when using net to get the response I'm seeking. Perhaps it would be better if I were to incorporate this reply into the post itself.
Thank you for taking time to respond!
If you're thinking about doing research for biology or biology-associated fields, NIH NCBI PubMed is your best friend. It's like Google, but made by the National Institute of Health and dedicated to research papers.
That being said, one of the big reasons why it's difficult to do your own research is because a lot of science publishers require you to pay a very large fee to access their articles, which makes it so that only people who are in a university or research institution can afford the cost. But there's also a lot of papers that are free and open access, so it could be worth it to give it a shot if you ever have any biology-related questions you want to research
Wikipedia is a better source than people give credit. Start there, then dig into the sources at the bottom of the Wikipedia page.
Always Google about the reputability of the website you're reading on. It will tell you whether or not you're wasting your time.
Research articles aren't hard to read, but the abstract and conclusion will tell you most of what you want to know, so you can easily save time by checking those.
A lot of libraries have online chat services where you can ask a reference librarian for help researching a topic. They can point out good sources and alternative search databases that might be more relevant than a general Google search depending on your query topic.
Librarians! They aren't just moving books around on carts. They actually study how to find information for several years. They are information finding professionals. (And other stuff like organizing, presenting, preserving etc of information.)
Even if you think a random librarian won't know about your topic, they are very likely able to help you find out about it.
Libraries are one of the few places where you can just walk in (or call, or chat, or email) and ask someone for help and get it free of charge no hassle. If you aren't near a library or you don't find your local library helpful, just reach out to some other one. They don't check if you live in the place. NYPL has very generous online materials and assistance. But you can try other cities.
Depending on your search engine there's all kinds of things you can do from excluding results that contain specific words, matching exact phrases, or searching for specific file types.
I'd recommend finding a cheat sheet for Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, or whatever else you use.
Thanks for the cheat sheet idea! That might help!!