What tips or tricks do you use when researching a topic to find actually useful information?

unknown user
Fri, 30 Oct 2020 17:43:38 +0000

Stop me if you've heard this one before:

You get an idea for something you'd like to learn more about. (Maybe you have a question, maybe you want to explore a new hobby, or maybe you want to make a more informed decision.)

You type something into a search engine.

You click a result, only to realize that what you're reading is poorly written. It seems rushed, surface-level, and ill-informed. "This doesn't answer my question at all!" you think to yourself.

You go back, and try another one, and another one, only to give up and put the idea back in your head.

I don't think these webpages are written to be useful in the first place. They seem to be written to attract attention to the website for other reasons (ad revenue, affiliate links, to draw attention to a product or service). Regardless of why it's happening, though, I want to find a better way to search.

The sort of content I'm looking for is written by someone who really cares about the topic. I want to learn from dorks and nerds and passionate people. Once I stumbled across this blog about extra virgin olive oil. The website isn't pretty, and it goes way more in depth than I'll ever need, but I trust the author, and there are some really interesting nuggets of insight on these pages. (e.g. "Another myth debunked: Heating EVOO makes it ‘toxic’")

Do you have any tips or tricks to more reliably find these sorts of sources (whether online or in-person)?

Comments URL: https://tildes.net/~misc/szx/what_tips_or_tricks_do_you_use_when_researching_a_topic_to_find_actually_useful_information

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