Research
Before you write or talk about something, it’s usually good practice to do some research about the topic. Whenever I need to do some research, I typically begin with searching for what I am looking for through a search engine, most likely Google. I usually look through the first page of my results until I find something that pertains to what I am looking for. I try to find something that will expand on the topic and educate me more on that particular topic. A lot of times when I am doing research, I have to been interested and motivated to want to learn more. If I am forced to learn more about something, then it is much harder for me to be motivated to want to dive deep into a topic.
Something I try to do before I begin researching is I try to clear my cache and cookies. I clear my cache before beginning a search so hopefully I won’t get results that were influenced from any past data. Clearing cookies is also a good thing to do for pretty much the same reason. I do it to hopefully not allow my searched to be influenced by my past searches. In theory, the search results shouldn’t be geared towards whatever the search engine thinks I would want to see. It’s best to try to eliminate anything that may contaminate my search and stop me from finding reputable research.
It can be quite difficult to evaluate the quality of the source of the research at times. Typically, when I am casually researching something, I will read what I find and if it sounds good or truthful then I will take it for what it is. I know this is a bad thing to do because it’s easy for someone to put something out there that may be truthful but not fully truthful. The information could be not quite right, but as long as it sounds like the truth, then it’s good enough for me.
It’s hard to put an exact number on the ideal amount of sources someone looks at versus the amount of sources used. I think it’s best to look at a few different sources that are out there to get a good idea about the details of the topic. I also think it’s a good idea to only utilize the best sources that are found for a research paper. It is ok if there aren’t a lot of sources, as long as the paper is sufficiently backed up by the sources that are utilized. The final paper should be a culmination of all the best information and facts that the researcher finds to create the best possible paper they could create.
