Researching Online for Hard Statistics and Soft Facts

After the professor has given the research project to the students, the first thing that many of them do is to go online and start searching for information related to their topic. Once they are online they realise that the Internet is a vast place. There are literally billions and billions of websites. They open up some which they think are legitimate only to realise that the information inside is worthless. There is disappointment, but afterwards they realise that there could be so many more sites which are useful. So they move on and continue on to the next source.

The students know that during the course of their investigation, they will need to use a combination of both hard and soft research. For the first variety they will need to collect proven data that are a combination of solid numbers and hard facts. They have to make sure that the facts they are collecting have been verified by someone and the authority who is talking on the subject is a knowledgeable one. They will also have to quote that authority in their writings so that their professor knows that they have collected the data from a verified source. The websites that give them this information are usually websites of universities, well known organisations and famous sources of information.

But the students know that they need more than that. Yes, they have collected the hard facts and the statistics to prove their point. But what is their point? What are the opinions and views that they are trying to frame? They need help describing the ideas that are floating around in their head. So the students start browsing the Internet for soft research.

This type of research does not involve statistics, but they are equally authoritative and they also need to be gleaned from good sources. This is the collection of opinions, views, and thoughts on particular topics. As the students are browsing through the websites that offer such content they find that there are many people who have voiced their opinions on a variety of subjects. But not all of them are legitimate. Some of them are just mindless ramblings. Surely they cannot take these for their projects. The professors would dismiss them straight away without even giving them a second thought. No, they need the opinions of those who are masters in their field.

So they do a search based on the names of experts in their particular discipline. They narrow the search using the names of the universities that they had worked in, or the topic they had done research on. They look through research papers they had written and try to draw inspiration from the conclusions they had arrived at. The students find that there is a lot of material on the Internet. They only need to know where to look and how to look.

As they are browsing and doing online research, the students find that it can get quite confusing if they are not sure where to look. So, many of them make a list of the best sources. If they are not sure, they ask; their professors, their fellow students, and even friends from other streams. They find that they can get a lot of information in terms of both statistics and opinions from academic journals. Government websites are always a best place for facts and figures. There are some scientific and medical websites that are sanctioned by the authorities. For those who are involved in this field, these are a good place for valuable information. They also put on their list other websites that are not official, but they are still highly regarded in terms of the content they hold, and the quality of research they profess.

By the time the students are done with their online research, they find that they have collected a lot of material. The Internet truly is a vast place; with an unbelievable amount of information, and the pages and pages of data that they hold in their hands is proof enough of that. They now have to get started with the task of sifting through all that data, and retaining what is important and discarding what is not.

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