Thanks Renee!

Great post. In addition to the ‘Google’ and ‘Net’ searches, I use more focused internet searches through other search engines and databases. Firefox allows users to easily add such options in their search engine field so they can use their default search engine, or scroll down the list of their making and select any other search engine or database.

A few I have on my list include:
Business.com
Creative Commons
Dictionary.com
Merriam-Webster.com
Reference.com
MarketWatch
ESPN.com
BBC News
Thesaurus.com
weather.com
Technoratisearch.com
Amazon.com

I also have certain reliable sources of info bookmarked in a special research folder on a bookmark toolbar. The folder includes sites like JAMA and those with scholarly papers.

I really love your suggestion about the College Connection! I will have to bookmark more of those as sources of more interviews and information. Thanks!

Welcome to our little writer’s corner!

Usually interviews are great for research — but your friends, family, and co-workers with a myriad of talents and interests can also be great places to start when you are feeling out a new topic for the first time.

Congratulations Terreece — I am quite looking forward to your posts.

Welcome amd thank you for this excellent post. I tend to do a lot of research for my fiction writing as well as for my non fiction writing. Getting the facts right for a certain period in history or for a culture etc. is vital.

I have done some interviews in person and some via email. Both work well. I’m a fan of the library as well as the internet. You’re right about checking facts on the internet since anyone can post info it’s best to check the facts for accuracy in a few places.

Skippy – There are some good article, well researched etc., but people should do what you did, cross reference it with other information, but for the most part I use it to catch up on television episodes I’ve missed :0)

Phil – Funny and yet very sad. Though I am a little worried that they needed to confirm the information, not with their own officials, but through the media.

The internet is like that too, especially for a younger generation who, that’s all they know and have come to take it as gospel:

“I read it on the internet — it MUST be true!”

@Fiona — I LOVE your “Camel Infestation” idea. That would make a very interesting communications/social experiment, perfect for a college paper for Mass Comm or Sociology.

The rule applies most of the time, but if you’re pressed for time and/or just need a quick the human interest element is not as important, then I’d say e-mail and phone work equally (ie: I just wrote a piece on real estate, and the developers’ words were more important than how they were sitting or how they looked).

For interviews and profiles, though, I try to see it in that perspective.

This is just the latest “false sourcing…”

Some of the names and figures following are off due to it being an old story, but basics are true:

In one of my textbooks in college, (my degree is in Mass Com, concentration in Radio-TV), there was a story about how Time or Newsweek (?) had a story on the Ugandan (?) army. The editor wanted the reporter to put in the number of troops, Reporter called embassy and asked the number of troops. Embassy spokesman didn’t know. Reporter told editor. Editor told reporter to make up an “educated” number. Reporter used 250,000 (?) in article. As soon as article appeared, embassy called reporter back to say number was 250,000 — it wasn’t that the reporter guessed right, it was that the embassy used the magazine article as the source of its figure.

And speaking of Wikipedia–I know we all trash it all the time, but it does have its uses, namely that it’s often a good starting point, especially at the end of the article where you can look at the footnotes or bibliography. I often get ideas from checking those out. And while we all know about the bad Wikipedia articles–the celebrity du jour pieces written by an enthusiastic yet semi-illiterate ten year old, the 87,934 Pokemon articles (many written by those enthusiastic ten year olds), the raging political fights that take place in articles about current events–the majority of the articles I’ve looked at are actually pretty good; obviously they’re written by some pretty passionate amateurs. Last weekend I was researching a project and I had a number of online encyclopedias open–Britannica, Columbia, etc., plus Wikipedia. I was surprised to find that for a number of the subjects I looked at, the Wikipedia article was the best written and most comprehensive version. I know, sacrilege, but there, I said it.

My friends and I often joke about Wiki: “If I saw it on Wiki, it *must* be true!!”

Jodee – Thank you!

Carly – Thank you!

Angela – Good point on both phone interviews and the reports, I am a big phone-a-phobe and fight myself the whole time I’m dialing, but you just can’t beat the interaction. In person is even better. The amount of info I’ve gathered from an in person interview…it’s fantastic. No way to edit yourself or to wave me off. I think we’re seeing more writers getting duped by press releases disguised as articles or news reports from companies. That’s another blog entirely.

Fiona – you are lucky! That is a valuable resource. The students I tutor feel the same way and they just love Wikipedia. OMG!