Doing Research On The Internet: Methods, Issues And Challenges
The Internet is dynamic and distributed source of information
. Dynamic because it is changing constantly, new facts and information being added every moment, and is distributed because it is open for everyone to publish contents into the web. These two factors make internet chaotic but enormously rich resource. As the quantity of information available on the Internet is growing dynamically and this presents some unique challenges to find information, many tools have been developed to help organize and find information and allow systematic research.
To start with though it may most convenient to begin research through internet but, Internet doesn't always hold the answer. You may be forced to conduct your own primary research. Usefulness of internet for conducting research depends on the kind of information you're looking for and how much information you need. For historical research where you have to examine ancient texts and primary research is more important,
internet research wont be of much help but if you need statistics or encyclopedic knowledge, a growing number of primary sources exist online.
What really is a primary source? Most primary sources are in written form. It's typically a document, person, or artifact that acts as the origin of information and discussion. Primary sources are extremely important to research but in some case like historical research problem in using primary source material is that sometimes one cannot determine the accuracy of documents.
What is Secondary source? In most cases accessing information already gathered, in other words finding information from third-party sources such as marketing research reports, company websites, magazine articles or any information previously gathered whether from external or internal sources carried out by the marketers organization, old sales reports, or accounting records is secondary research.
There are many tools that exist to help you discover primary and secondary sources of information on the Internet. Depending upon the kind of information you want, you can narrow down your search. If you're looking for
research data in the fields of industry and academia, online academic and trade journals would be the best place to look for.
Journals: Open access journal is most suitable and easily accessible option if scientific and scholarly journals are needed for research. JSTOR is another option for academic and scholarly journals.
Directories: Web directory is a very useful tool for internet research; it acts as an index of sites sorted by subjects. The directory has a wide variety of subjects to browse through.
Search Engines: Search engines are a most vital tool and also play an important role in looking for information on internet. These tools offer the scope for fine tuning your searches by file type, location and date etc and for getting the best results from search engines there is an option of advanced search technique also.
Research Techniques
There are several very useful techniques for finding the most reliable information available while conductinginternet searches. However if we consider the vast amount of information on internet, few extra considerations are to be made.
Verify and try to find the strongest source for information. There are techniques that can be used to verify information and find the best sources, like looking for most reliable source listed and pick put the various key words which would identify information on internet on the chosen subject. And verify if the source of a piece of information is primary. Determine the kind of information you want to find and where you're most likely to find it. Consider reviewing more traditional print sources, especially when dealing with local or obscure subjects.
There is no equal to internet when it comes to speed and efficiency in research and researching from your desktop is more convenient than other modes of search. But internet research based on primary sources being increasing adopted. Having the information and knowledge of the tools and techniques makes the process easier and more reputable.
by: Pawan ipace
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