How To Find Anything Online - Become An Internet Research Expert - Webdesigner Depot

2/22/2016 How to Find Anything Online: Become an Internet Research Expert | Webdesigner Depot
How to Find Anything Online: Become an

Internet Research Expert
Einstein once said, “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
The same could be said of intelligence. What they don’t tell you is that the “smart”
people of the world are, in most cases, just better at researching and learning things
than everyone else.
But researching is a learned skill, not something you’re born with.
And while some people might be predisposed to learn things more easily than others,
it’s generally not enough to make a measurable difference.
By learning how to research, you can quickly and fairly easily become knowledgeable
about just about anything. And with the Internet, almost anything you could ever
want to know is at your fingertips. You just have to learn how to access it.
It’s all there, online, for free. Here are the techniques I’ve used to find pretty much
anything online.
Start with Wikipedia

Whenever you try to learn something new on the Internet, start with . A wealth of
information is there, covering practically every subject in an easy-to-use, easy-to-
understand format.
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/12/how-to-find-anything-online-become-an-internet-research-expert/ 1/22
[1]
The main reason to start with Wikipedia is that it gives a good overview of most
topics.
Sure, any given page is bound to have some inaccuracies (as is the case on most user-
generated websites), but most of the content is generally reliable. And when the
accuracy of certain information is questionable, it’s usually tagged as such.
The key to using Wikipedia as a source, though, is in how you make use of the
information. You have to pay attention to a number of things on a Wikipedia page
aside from the main content.
First of all, read the introduction to the page. This is where you’ll usually find a quick
description of the topic, along with alternate and related terms.
Skim the content to find the parts of the article that you need to know about most.
Some articles are short and don’t have a list of contents. Others are several thousand
words long. Reading the entire thing is usually unnecessary. Just skip to the sections
that are relevant to you.
Next, check the references and related resources. The references is a great place to get
in-depth information on your topic. These links often include scholarly journals and
articles and other respected sources.
The related sources section includes external links to in-depth information. These
websites often include professional associations and organizations devoted to the
topic as well as general websites with good topical information.
Move on to Google
Once you’ve built a good foundation through Wikipedia, move on to a Google search
(or whatever search engine you prefer).
Having read a bit on Wikipedia, you should know the main terms and keywords
associated with the subject you’re researching. Start your general search with
these terms.
When researching something, I always open a new window in Firefox. For each link I
visit in a Google search, I open a new tab so that I can keep my original search results
page open.
And if I click on additional links on pages that I have opened, I don’t have to go back
through 10 or more pages to return to my original search.
Go Multimedia
Text isn’t the only educational content on the web. Video, podcasts and slideshows
are out there to explain pretty much anything you can imagine.
The advantage of so much multimedia content being available is that it caters to

people with different learning styles.
Some people learn well by reading. Others learn better by hearing an explanation or
seeing a demonstration. And still others learn by doing (which is where step-by-step
tutorials—either video, audio or text—come in handy).
If you learn best by watching demonstrations, then head on over to YouTube, Odeo,
Vimeo or any of the many other video websites and start typing the keywords that you
found on Wikipedia.
[2]
Make sure, though, whenever you deal with user-generated content to verify the
information against reputable sources.
One often-overlooked resource for videos is the archive from the (Technology,
Entertainment, Design) conferences.
[3]
TED videos are available for free on the official website and cover (as you might
expect) technology, entertainment and design.
While many of the videos focus on broad concepts rather than the nitty-gritty, they’re
still a great resource to expand your horizon. And the lectures are given by leaders in
their fields, so the information is generally reliable.
Check Out Free Educational Resources

A ton of colleges are now putting their course materials online, accessible for free.
offers its entire catalog as open courseware, with lecture notes, resources and syllabi.
Other two- and four-year colleges are following suit.
You’ll also find purely web-based open education initiatives that cover subjects you
might not find at a traditional college. These free courses offer a ton of organized
information on any given subject.
Some colleges offer their lectures in audio and video format. Princeton, for example,
offers some of its lectures through , as does the University of Virginia, Duke, Emory,
Yale and Stanford.
[4]
In fact, iTunes has an entire section devoted to educational podcasts called iTunes U.
Non-educational organizations are also represented, including the Library of Congress
and Wall Street Journal.
The educational podcast market isn’t monopolized by iTunes, though. has an

education category with 466 channels and more than 67,000 episodes. Participating
colleges and universities include Oxford University, the University of Melbourne and
MIT.
[5]
Look for Tutorials

Depending on your topic, you may be able to find tutorials. For pretty much any
practical skill (and a whole lot of unpractical ones), you can find an online tutorial
that teaches you how to do it.
You can find tutorials through search engines (just add “tutorial” or “instructions” to
the end of your keyword search). You can also find them on these websites:
is a general tutorial website that offers step-by-step instructions on projects in

categories such as arts, crafts, food, kids, music, outdoors and pets. Every tutorial has
photos and/or diagrams to illustrate the process.
[6]
offers categorized instructions and tutorials created by users. They include both text
and video tutorials on a variety of topics, including law, health, food and drink,
electronics and computers.
is a user-editable how-to manual that covers a ton of different topics. Because of its
wiki format, tutorials and instructions are constantly being improved.
The offers tutorials on a variety of tech topics, including Photoshop, web design, Flash
and photography. Its tutorials are split into separate blogs based on topic and are
written by experts.
[7]
offers tech tutorials for a variety of software programs, including Photoshop, GIMP,
Flash, Blender and Illustrator.
offers up tech-related tutorials, covering CSS, Flash, HTML, Photoshop, PHP and
more. Tutorials are categorized and searchable.
Use Tools Available to You

A ton of tools are out there to make online research a bit (or a lot) easier.
Some help by organizing your sources, others let you save snippets of pages for later
reference, and others do pretty much everything you could ask for from a research
app. They make tracking your research and organizing it for later reference a much
easier process.
is a Firefox add-on that acts like a research assistant. It lets you collect links and
whole pages, organize them into folders and tag them. It even generates a “Works
cited” list from them. You can jot down notes on anything you save, which makes it
much easier to remember why you included it in the first place or to remind yourself
later how you ended up using it.
[8]
Zotero has a ton of features. It automatically captures citations; it cites from within
MS Word and OpenOffice; it accesses your library from anywhere; it searches PDFs
and notes instantly; and it lets you create group libraries.
It’s also compatible with thousands of bibliographic styles, so when it comes time to
create a “Works cited” list, you don’t have to spend hours reformatting the whole
thing. The best part is that Zotero is free and open source, so you can extend and
modify it to meet your needs (or find others who have already done the work).
is a permanent highlighting tool for Firefox. You can highlight sections of a web page
to refer to later on. It’s a great app if you want to be able to easily refer to a specific
section of a website that you’ve bookmarked. Wired-Marker is itself also a bookmark
organizer.
is a note-taking and bookmarking app that works with Firefox and Internet Explorer 7
and 8. It saves any pages that you highlight or bookmark, so that even if the page
changes or is deleted, you still have the original version. You can save sections of a
website or the whole thing. You can also invite others to join your projects, share
information and access information that others have shared.
[9]
is a great Firefox extension for finding websites related to the one you’re on. There’s
also a web-based version for people who don’t use Firefox. The add-on is particularly
useful if you’re on, say, Odeo and want to see other websites that offer podcasts.
is an online note-taking app that lets you custom-save content from any pages on the
web. You can organize and share pages based on a specific subject. The app has many
customizable features, including ones that let you annotate and color your notes. The
downloadable Firefox add-on helps you use Notefish more efficiently.
lets you highlight and share pages all over the web. You can add sticky notes to pages
for later reference and can access notes from your computer or iPhone. Saved pages
can be organized with tags or lists. You can create groups to share resources for a
project, and you can even enforce tagging rules among group members to keep things
organized. Free and premium accounts are available (educators get a free premium
account).
is a Safari plug-in that replaces the browser’s bookmark management scheme with an
easier-to-use bookmark and information management tool. You can bookmark links
and save links from email, Address Book cards, and folder and file links from Finder. It
puts all of your relevant information in one place.
[10]
Information overload is a common problem when researching a new subject online.

helps combat the problem by summarizing the content of a web page, document or
section of text for you. It identifies key topics on a page and presents relevant
information without duplicating content.
is an information management app for Mac OS X that lets you archive and search PDF
files, word-processing documents, images, web pages, mail and more. It has a three-
pane interface similar to that of most email programs. Files are stored in a universal
format, so they’re accessible from any application. Files can be encrypted, and you can
add notes, tags, labels and meta data to them.
[11]
When you download something in Safari, no record is kept of where it came from. This
can be a problem if you need to refer to it in a “Works cited” list or just want to know
where to get similar content. adds a note in the file’s Spotlight Comments field with
the URL of the original file.
lets you search the content of every web page and RSS feed that you’ve visited recently
in Safari, as well as any bookmarked page. It ranks results by relevance. It’s a great
way to track down information in resources that you’ve already discovered.
[12]
is an app for Mac OS X that lets you store documents in one place for later reference
and citation. It automatically creates a “Works cited” list in Harvard, APA, MLA or
Chicago/Turabian format. It has built-in search and one-click referencing of web
pages (in Safari or Firefox) and email (from Apple Mail).
is a research application for Mac OS X that combines a browser, PDF manager, word
processor, bibliography manager and outliner in a single window. Research is much
simpler because you don’t have to switch back and forth between different
applications.
is an online note-taking application that lets you save just about anything, from notes
to images to web pages. And it stores everything online, so you can access your notes
from anywhere. There’s even an iPhone app.
is a free wiki-based online notepad. You can create personal or group notebooks and
access them either online or through the iPhone app.
[13]
is a free online note-taking app that lets you create an unlimited number of notebooks
and save notes, web pages and other information in a single place, accessible from
anywhere. You can organize your notes by adding tags to them, as you would with
Google Bookmarks.
Specialized Websites
Specialized online libraries exist for a ton of different subjects. Anything from
language to science to technology to history has its own dedicated resource library
somewhere on the Internet.
These collections can speed up your research, and they sometimes include only
reliable websites. Here are some to get you started.
If you’re looking for information on art, whether museums, individual artists or art
movements, is the place to go. It lists 9,200 artists and has 140,000 links from 2,600
different art websites.
is a database of movies and television programs, dating as far back as film itself. You
can search by cast member or title. Individual listings include all previous and
upcoming roles. Movie results include cast and production crew, plot synopsis and
other production information (often photos).
[14]
Medical and Scientific

publishes 200 open-access peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals. And you can
search all 200 of them on the website.
History and Humanities

The collects public domain and copy-permitted historical texts in one place. The
collection includes ancient, medieval and modern texts, as well as ones of specific
groups, regions and religions.
offers historical texts and resources from American history. It is run through a
partnership with a variety of educational and historical organizations, including the
University of Houston, the Chicago Historical Society and the National Park Service. It
has resources for researchers and teachers, including multimedia resources.
[15]
The is a resource of mostly historical texts from Tufts University. The digital
collection includes material from Greek and Roman, Renaissance and 19th-century
American history.
offers public domain books and written material for free. The collection includes
fiction, non-fiction and poetry and is both searchable and browsable. Most of the
content dates to the 19th century and earlier.
[16]
General and Scholarly

helps individuals find the best websites on which to conduct their research. You can
search or browse by category. It even offers free training on using the web for research
and education.
[17]
is a search engine for scholarly resources. The categories, which are browsable,
include the following: bio, agricultural and medical sciences; business and economics;
cultural diversity; e-journals; government info; maps and GIS; physical sciences,
engineering, computer science and math; social sciences and humanities; and visual
and performing arts. It also includes general reference and advanced search
functionality.
The is a searchable directory of content from all over the Internet, broken down by
category. It includes only reputable websites, making it easier to trust the information
you find.
The is another collection of resources from all over the web, broken down by category.
The collections are targeted at children, teens, adults and educators. The collection
covers art and the humanities, social science, law and government, computers and
much more.
[18]
from BNET lets you search articles from a wide range of consumer and trade
magazines and newspapers. The articles are searchable and browsable by category.
The offers a ton of information, including digital collections. Its online collection
includes history, performing arts, legislative information and international resources.
It’s a particularly good source of government information, because its THOMAS
system lets you search the full text of congressional records, bills and more.
You can learn just about anything with the resources and techniques mentioned here.
As you research more topics and become accustomed to learning in this manner,
learning new things will become easier.
Pretty soon, you’ll be able to gain a working knowledge of practically any subject after
just a couple of hours of research.
Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.
How do you find information online? Are there any other great resources that we missed?
Please add them below…
Links
1. http://wikipedia.org/
2. http://youtube.com/
3. http://ted.com/
4. http://apple.com/itunes
5. http://odeo.com/
6. http://www.instructables.com/
7. http://tutsplus.com/
8. http://overexpressed.com/2009/07/19/zotero-is-magic-for-saving-organizing-and-
sharing-documents-on-the-web/
9. http://www.icyte.com/annos/list?
filter[project_id]=374&filter[project_landing]=true
10. http://concierge.en.softonic.com/mac/images
11. http://c-command.com/eaglefiler/
12. http://mac.softpedia.com/progScreenshots/HistoryHound-Screenshot-8723.html
13. http://jane3gar.springnote.com/pages/2845980
14. http://www.imdb.com/
15. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/
16. http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
17. http://www.intute.ac.uk/
18. http://www.ipl.org/
Get a free Evernote account to save this article and

view it later on any device.
Create account

How To Find Anything Online - Become An Internet Research Expert - Webdesigner Depot

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Исходное описание:

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

How To Find Anything Online - Become An Internet Research Expert - Webdesigner Depot

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

2/22/2016 How to Find Anything Online: Become an Internet Research Expert | Webdesigner Depot

How to Find Anything Online: Become an

But researching is a learned skill, not something you’re born with.

Start with Wikipedia

The advantage of so much multimedia content being available is that it caters to

Check Out Free Educational Resources

The educational podcast market isn’t monopolized by iTunes, though. has an

Look for Tutorials

is a general tutorial website that offers step-by-step instructions on projects in

Use Tools Available to You

later how you ended up using it.

information and access information that others have shared.

Information overload is a common problem when researching a new subject online.

Medical and Scientific

History and Humanities

has resources for researchers and teachers, including multimedia resources.

General and Scholarly

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

Get a free Evernote account to save this article and

Вам также может понравиться