Trolling for information

Culture | July 13th, 2016

By Chuck Solly

How much information can you consume? Does your brain fill up very quickly? The internet search engines (used properly) will certainly fill up your brain. So what is a guy/girl to do?

Use your time, brainpower and search engines wisely. I have a digital clock on my computer screen and I keep track of the time I spend on a project. Staring at a computer screen for a few hours will make your eyes sting. Get up, move around, get some food or water. The Internet will be there when you get back.

Now that we have gotten the housekeeping out of the way, let’s talk about actually getting the search engines to find the correct information, the info we have been trolling for. Key words or synonyms for keywords work very well in search engines. It does take a little practice and patience.

Search engines will, however, lead you all over the place. I keep a pad of paper next to the computer and I write down search terms that I want to use. Try to be selective in choosing the articles you want to read. Many times, I will copy the URL (web address) of all of my chosen search results into a text file. Storing the file on your desktop will allow you to come back to a particular website to explore it more completely.

Search engines are also good with phrases. On June 4 of this year, the satirical news site the Science Post published a block of “lorem ipsum” (filler text) under a frightening headline “Study: 70% of Facebook users only read the headline of science stories before commenting.” Only the first paragraph of this article was readable, the rest was the filler text. This is typical of modern information consumption. People form an opinion based on a summary, or a summary of summaries, without making the effort to go deeper.

People are more willing to share an article than read it. That sounds crazy to me but it happens. Take the time to sort through the web site to find what you want. Keep your search terms very narrow (mentioned above) and find out what form your information should be in, such as facts, opinions, analyses, etc.

The next step is the in-depth research. We have already covered the Internet, but try your local library for some specialized databases that you can't find on the Internet. The local library has subscriptions to databases that you may not want to pay for. First-person interviews can provide you with lots of information but many times are hearsay or they get the story wrong.

The search engine rankings don't change very fast. Here are the top five:

1. Google

2. Bing

3. Yahoo

4. Ask

5. AOL Search

There are a few differences between search engines depending upon your search but it sometimes pays to perform the same search on different engines.

Probably the best encyclopedia on line is Wikipedia. This is the site that caused all of the estate and garage sales in the last fifteen years to contain used copies of encyclopedia sets to be sold for five dollars or less.

Wikipedia is written by volunteers, edited by volunteers and the web site is run by volunteers. It has been my experience that Wikipedia is reliable and accurate. Is there a subject that you are familiar enough with to submit to Wikipedia? Submit and see if their editors accept it. If you have your facts wrong someone reading your article will correct you. That is how Wikipedia works.

I will take you through a summary of Ebay next time but I did want to mention that Ebay is a very good source of some types of information.

RECENTLY IN

Recently in: