Locating information without a clear system for finding it is something akin to driving sixty miles an hour down a foggy Texas coastal road. Either you get lost or wind up in the drink!
Folks who were brought up with encyclopedias and dictionaries and library cards seem to intuitively understand how to find out what they want to know. Flipping the dial on the TV as a pastime instead makes it harder for the rest of us.
Here's one way to cruise the foggy info-highway for obscure sites:
1. Brainstorm some different versions of what you want to know. Lean toward two or three word searches. (Yahoo's information search options listed below the search box when you type in your search term will suggest some to you if you want to dive right in with one word.)
2. Search on the first term.
3. Open every site on the page that's not an ad. (I open these in new tabs so I can keep the original search page up. . .
4. Go to the second search page. those in tabs, too.
5. Go to the third search page. Yep, open those in tabs, too.
6. THEN, start browsing. If I want to come back to this later, I don't bookmark the site. I copy and then paste the URL in a word document and add some copy/pasted text from the page to jog my memory. If it has some promising links, I'll star it for later.
7. Close the tab. Go on to the next. And the next. Very quickly, you'll go through 30 sites and be surprised at how much general knowledge you've acquired. That maybe all you need.
8. If I'm so inclined, I'll reopen the good sites and bookmark them into a single folder. That way, when I want to do some more reading, I can open all those tabs at once.
9. To find out what people are saying about that subject, I'll also do a Google Blog Search the same way.
10. If it's really good stuff, I'll compile an article or a series of articles for you, so you don't have to do it.
Check back periodically for articles and more tips.
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