Do's and Don'ts of Internet Research
How to Use the Internet as a Resource in Article Writing
Feb 27, 2009
With online information so accessible to us it is tempting to go there to acquire anything we are seeking to know. Self-regulating resources like Wikipedia and google- or yahoo-search readily provide us with an answer to just about any question we may pose. But is it the right answer? The very accessibility of online information makes it risky and often questionable. You need to be more vigilant of the veracity and reliability of your sources when acquiring information from the internet for your articles.
How to Ensure Your Research is Sound
One of your responsibilities as an article writer is to confirm that your information is sound. When doing research, particularly on the internet (but anywhere), you should do several things:
· Use more than one source, particularly for important things; this will give you a wider range of material from which to discern accuracy and reliability.
· Verify your sources and preferably cross-reference to measure out objective “truth” vs bias.
· Try to use primary sources (original) vs. secondary or tertiary sources (original cited and open to interpretation); the closer you are to the original source, the closer you are to getting the original “story”.
· When going to more than one source, try to get a range of different source-types (e.g., conservative newspaper vs. blog vs. special interest site, etc.) to gain a full range of insight into the issue you’re researching.
· If you encounter controversy or differing opinions by reliable sources on a topic, it is wise to report both in your article even if you are biased toward one over another; this provides authenticity to your article and gives it an additional element of interest.
Advantages of Interactive Research
Researching on the internet gives you additional opportunities not provided by static sources like the library database, magazines or newspapers. The internet offers live chats, forums and interactive blogs. Through these resources, you can enter a lively interactive arena by conducting interviews or hosting or participating in an interactive forum in which you can solicit many opinions on a subject of interest. Here again, it is important to frame your resource pool through some kind of initial screening. Be sure that you obtain the credentials of your “experts” whose opinions you use.
Having said this, one of the advantages of conducting interactive research is the insight you gain on a topic that you may not have previously considered. This kind of open-ended research can shed incredible light into your topic of research as well as providing a more robust and personal aspect to your article.
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