How To Research On The Internet For Your Article

Posted by Madhavi on Jan 11, 2012 in Featured, Web Writing | 0 comments

Web content writers are constantly required to research on the Internet for information. We are constantly challenged by the requirement to write accurate and well written articles for our clients and on our blogs and websites.

Typically, all web content writers gravitate towards conducting their research on the Internet using Internet based Search Engines, like Google. So, lets dive into today’s article, and learn some simple tips that will help your process of research on the Internet to be better, and more accurate.

As I have mentioned above, most web content writers easily end up on their favorite Search Engines (mine is Google, of course) to do their research on the Internet. And when we do put in a search term in Google, we can end up with literally thousands and thousands of web pages and blogs which might carry the information we require.

So how do we end up sorting out the correct information from all that is out there? And best of all, where else on the vast network of the World Wide Web do we look? Let’s find out.

Research on the Internet: Places to Look

Apart from Search Engines, there are many other places where one can source information for our research on the Internet. Let’s go through a quick list of those places. For the sake of simplicity, I am also including Search Engines in that list.

Search Engines like Google and Yahoo!
Online Discussion Forums
Mailing Lists
Message Boards
Wiki based sites like Wikipedia

Naturally, you might end up finding links to these sites from your Search Engine. But you can also look specifically for, say, Message Boards or Discussion Forums for your specific topic as well, and the Search Engine will point you in the right direction.

But, again, the question arises: how does one separate the wheat from the chaff? How does a web content writer determine the accuracy of the information provided.

Research on the Internet: Judging the Accuracy of Information

Judging the accuracy of the information provided in your research on the Internet is what will determine the success or failure of the content that you are publishing on the Internet. Here is a simple process that will help you make that decision more effectively.

First of all, choose your keywords properly. When you research on the Internet for something, you need to have your search terms and keywords / key phrases handy. Usually, web writers are also provided with keywords by their clients. Those keywords are pretty useful in this process. If not, you can turn to the title of the article that you have to write, and use that as your primary search keyword. If you choose your keywords properly, then you will be sure to get the search results in the direction of your article’s content.
Secondly, decide the tone of your article. This is also very important, because this will help you select the correct type of article to refer to, from among the hundreds of thousands of websites that pop up in your search result. For example, you can decide if your article is going to be fact based, or opinion based, or argument based. Fact based articles will need to have information such as statistics and charts along with the information. But opinion based articles can be sourced from information available on, say, opinion based blogs and discussion forums. Argument based articles are more challenging though, because there, you might have to really think and write an article that argues either for or against a particular point in question.
Third, judge the reliability of the information provided. To do this, you must be able to make a quick decision regarding the source website in its entirety. For example, most web writers often end up landing on Wikipedia pages for a lot of information. But Wikipedia, and such wiki based websites are often open to being edited by random people, and thus, may not carry reliable information about speciality topics. [You might want to read this excellent article on Wikipedia about the Reliability of Wikipedia to know more about this.] So if you are sourcing your information from Wikipedia, then better double-check if the same information is present across the other websites that carry this information. Also, if you are sourcing your information from a blog, then you can just as well check the blog author’s credentials and his / her web presence to make your decision. If an author is anonymous, then you might as well go elsewhere to source your information.
Fourth, see how comprehensively the information has been provided. Does the source article include all the various aspects of the topic? Does it give enough or detailed information for you to depend on it for all your information? Does the source article provide references to other articles and websites? All of these are pretty good indicators of the comprehensiveness of the article.
Fifth, see how objectively the article has been presented. Unless you are specifically looking for an opinion based post, this is one important factor to consider. A source article should have an objective point of view. If you’ve gone through the third step properly, then you will already know if the author of that source article had a specific leaning towards a particular aspect of the topic, or if he was part of a group or organization that had a leaning towards a particular angle about the topic. If neither is the case, and your article provides information that has been carefully balanced and contains all relevant facts and opinions presented in a non-biased manner, then you can certainly use this article for your source material.
Sixth, check how dated the information is. Most websites and blogs automatically publish the date that the article went ‘live’ on the Internet. If your article is based on stuff that won’t get dated, say, like historical events, then these things won’t really matter. But if your article is based on recent events, or recent developments, or current news items, then the date of of publication of your source article becomes very important.
Seventh, see the quality of the language used. Good articles will be well written. Period. The grammar will be proper, and the language will be of a good quality. If you see an article that, well, just stinks, as far as language is concerned, my advice would be: stay away from it!

These few tips will certainly help you conduct your research on the Internet in a better, and more accurate manner. Once you have your source article ready and handy, you will be able to write your article with all the facts and information at your hand.

And remember: don’t copy and paste! Plagiarism is the biggest sin you, as a web content writer, can ever commit!

In Conclusion…

Research on the Internet can often be very challenging for many web content writers. However, with these few simple tips, you can ensure that you get the correct information on the topic you are writing, and that your research on the Internet is pointed in the right direction.

Did these tips and ideas help you out? Do you have some other tips to share? Please, do let me know in the comments section below.