# I want to become a good internet researcher! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 12, 2003, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729 "2003-11-12T01:14:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![hauss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5fc32e/32.png) [@hauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hauss)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/1 "2003-11-12T01:14:34Z")
What are the key skills to being a savvy internet researcher? Where do most of you find your info? Is google enough to find anything you want, or do you need multiple starting points? I’m always looking for health stuff… and WebMD fails time and time again for me. What are some good starting points for health and fitness, specifically? I breezed through the reference list in GQ, those are some good starting points, but they fail me all the time. Thanks for your help, I need it! ---
**Author:** ![MaryEFoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@MaryEFoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaryEFoo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/2 "2003-11-12T06:39:30Z")
Observation: Health and fitness produce throngs of gurus giving you the benefit of their knowledge, on the Web and personally. These gurus freely contradict each other. WAG: To be a good researcher, you need to know about the subject in real life. Then you can deal competently with the facts, perspectives, guesses, and hustles that are out there. Suggestion: You begin by building yourself a foundation by learning physiology, nutrition, sports medicine, etc, from professors and textbooks that meet standards. You can do this to the extent desired, whether to a hobby level, or, for not much more effort (just a more methodical approach), to a professional level. ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/3 "2003-11-12T07:13:14Z")
Google is The One True Search Engine; if you can’t find it on Google, then you probably don’t need to find it at all. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/4 "2003-11-12T07:52:00Z")
Google is getting worse, though. I have to wade through a lot of noise on the first several pages now to find any signal. [http://www.findlaw.com](http://www.findlaw.com) is an excellent resource of free legal information for laypersons. ---
**Author:** ![Violet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ebca7d/32.png) [@Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Violet)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/5 "2003-11-12T09:22:23Z")
See Mary Ellen Bates’ web site at [http://www.batesinfo.com/index.html](http://www.batesinfo.com/index.html) She wrote (well co-authored) “Researching Online For Dummies.” ---
**Author:** ![hauss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5fc32e/32.png) [@hauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hauss)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/6 "2003-11-12T13:20:27Z")
Thanks. Hey, maybe I should be looking past the first 2 pages of Google more often? I usually tend to think that if there isn’t anything on the first two pages, then there won’t be anything useful… maybe that’s my problem right there? ---
**Author:** ![Erika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/47e85d/32.png) [@Erika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erika)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/7 "2003-11-12T13:51:01Z")
The other skill is being able to tweak your search. If two words gets you three zillion hits, what third word do you want to throw in? If you’re not finding what you want, how else could you phrase it? A little bit of persistance and practice makes you much better at that. ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/8 "2003-11-12T15:36:28Z")
Definitely look past page 2. Even if you won’t find exactly what you need, you might be inspired to add a new keyword. Use the - to eliminate irrelevant hits. For example, last week I was searching for something (can’t remember what) that also happened to be the name of a fairly popular indepenedent band I’d never heard of. (I am a square, I guess.) Anyway, to get rid of the bad hits, I searched for search terms -rock Use " " to group terms that should appear right next to each other. For example, this morning I was looking for information on general relativistic time dilation, but I was getting too many pages about special relativity, so I changed my search from general relativity time dilation which was giving me hits on anything that had “general” anywhere on the page to time dilation “general relativity” which narrows the search to pages that really are primarily about general relativity. ---
**Author:** ![XJETGIRLX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9fc29f/32.png) [@XJETGIRLX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XJETGIRLX)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/9 "2003-11-12T15:55:43Z")
I second what **Podkayne** said. Also, check out Google’s [advanced search tips](http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html) page. It’s got a lot of hints for how to narrow your search to more accurately reflect what you’re looking for. ---
**Author:** ![hauss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5fc32e/32.png) [@hauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hauss)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2003, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/10 "2003-11-14T20:44:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Podkayne \* > \*\* For example, this morning I was looking for information on general relativistic time dilation, but I was getting too many pages about special relativity, so I changed my search from > > general relativity time dilation > > which was giving me hits on anything that had “general” anywhere on the page to > > time dilation “general relativity” > > which narrows the search to pages that really are primarily about general relativity. \*\* Question: Why did you switch time dilation and general relativity around from your first example to the second one? That minus symbol is a good tip, thanks. I think I’ll look for that searching for dummies book at B & N next time I’m there. ---
**Author:** ![hauss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5fc32e/32.png) [@hauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hauss)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2003, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/11 "2003-11-14T20:48:10Z")
It would help if we could do an example: Recently I was searching for mild sun exposure and it’s effect on hair growth (baldness). Where would you start first and what would be your search terms to weed out sales? Is there any way to search just informative sites with Google (I doubt it)? ---
**Author:** ![El\_Gui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@El\_Gui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Gui)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2003, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/12 "2003-11-14T23:10:21Z")
Weeding out sites that sell products or services can be a bit difficult. You might have a bit more luck in going the [directory](http://www.google.com/dirhp?hl=en) route and looking into the Health sub-sections, such as: [Health \> Men’s Health \> Baldness](http://directory.google.com/Top/Health/Men%27s_Health/Baldness/) or [Health \> Conditions and Diseases \> Skin Disorders \> Hair Loss](http://directory.google.com/Top/Health/Conditions_and_Diseases/Skin_Disorders/Hair_Loss/) This way, you may avoid sites that would instead be listed under: Shopping \> Health \> Conditions and Diseases \> Hair Loss Unfortunately, many sites that sell hair loss products will contain some medical information so that they end up listed in as many directory headings as possible to increase their traffic (unless Google limits this, which I doubt). As far as search terms, I would use something like: sun exposure “hair loss” OR baldness I also tried: “hair loss” OR baldness sun exposure The total results were the same, but they appeared in a slightly different order, so perhaps greater weight is given to terms that appears first? Another search term to consider would be : +“MPB” . . . since it appeared in many of the results. And in typing up this post I was able to learn that [Aaron J. Kozol, R.Ph](http://www.hairlosshelp.com/qna/Detail.Cfm?FAQID=1641&ExpertID=12) "know[s] of no research that shows sun exposure can worsen mpb . . . " Learn something new every day. ---
**Author:** ![hauss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5fc32e/32.png) [@hauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hauss)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2003, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/13 "2003-11-16T14:53:50Z")
I searched the health\>Men’s health\>baldness portion of the Google directory. I first used “Sun exposure” -MPB, (Because I don’t want to know about MPB but spontaneous hair loss instead). Nothing came up. So, I searched “sun exposure”. Nothing. So I searched “Sun”. I got multiple pages of things from **computer, media, recreation, ect.** categories. A whole bunch of newspaper and corporation web sites. Sun Microsystems came up about 30 times!!! Why didn’t the engine search only baldness like it said it would? Also, no site at all about baldness popped up. This is the perfect example of what I am talking about. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![hauss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5fc32e/32.png) [@hauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hauss)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2003, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/14 "2003-11-16T14:55:18Z")
FYI, I made sure the the option for searching only baldness was selected. ---
**Author:** ![jmizzou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@jmizzou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmizzou)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2003, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/15 "2003-11-16T16:50:56Z")
If you can’t find something on Google, you can always try [Google Groups](http://groups.google.com/). It’s an archive of Usenet discussions. ---
**Author:** ![Trigonal\_Planar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/0ea827/32.png) [@Trigonal\_Planar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trigonal_Planar)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2003, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/16 "2003-11-16T18:04:16Z")
One “secret” that very few people seem to know about is the incredible wealth of information available on Usenet. I’ve been using them for years now and they are an incredible source of information. If you have a question, any question, odds are someone has asked the exact same question on Usenet. **jmizzou** linked to the Google Groups search above. ---
**Author:** ![prisoner6655321](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f8ce5/32.png) [@prisoner6655321](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/prisoner6655321)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2003, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/17 "2003-11-17T10:25:44Z")
Some links for you to bookmark: Okay info for basic search engines:[Advanced Web Searching](http://www.learnthenet.com/english/html/77advanc.htm) Better info:[Resources for research](http://www.useekufind.com/resource.htm) [Virtual Library](http://vlib.org/) and… _Holey Schmoley!!_ If you bookmark one tip site, make sure it’s [Searchlore](http://www.searchlore.org/) (Maybe a bit too hackerish for some but still some good tips for the general public.) Make sure you click on the “\>\>'s” next to the enter link. (Below the logo.) [Searchlore tips](http://www.searchlore.org/tips.htm) [Searchlore Main search engines](http://www.searchlore.org/main.htm) [Searchlore bots](http://www.searchlore.org/bots.htm) (and how to make your own!) ---
**Author:** ![Snowcarpet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowcarpet/32/257_2.png) [@Snowcarpet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowcarpet)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2003, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-want-to-become-a-good-internet-researcher/212729/18 "2003-11-17T17:26:54Z")
hauss, I’m a consumer health librarian and I teach people (public and professional) how to search the internet for health information. Here are my top tips and suggestions : To find good search engines, look at a page like this : > **[This ipl page has moved to… | ipl: Information You Can Trust](https://www.ipl.org/div/websearching/)** > > This page has moved to https://www.ipl.org/. You will be redirected in 10 seconds to its new location. Please update your links or bookmarks to this site. Javascript disabled. Redirection will not occur. Please click link. Learn about advanced search options and use them to suit your needs and preferences. I’m using Google most of the time now. In instances where you get 3 million results or if you’re searching a topic where you’re not sure in the links you find are reliable, forget search engines. Use specialized health info sites. If you have good luck with WebMD, Mayoclinic, etc, use them first. Since you’ve had trouble with these, I’d suggest these three instead : > **[MedlinePlus - Health Information from the National Library of Medicine](https://www.medlineplus.gov/)** > > Find information on health conditions, wellness issues, and more in easy-to-read language on MedlinePlus, the up-to-date, trusted health information site from the NIH and the National Library of Medicine. This is the greatest thing in health info today : access to health topic pages, drug info, encyclopedias, and Pubmed (abstracts of medical literature w/some full text.) Here’s their Exercise/Physical Fitness topic page : > **[Exercise and Physical Fitness: MedlinePlus](https://medlineplus.gov/exerciseandphysicalfitness.html)** > > Exercise is one of the most important things you can do for your health. The key is to find the right exercise for you. Get the facts about fitness. If you start off at the organizations section, you can link to more info very quickly. [http://www.healthfinder.gov/](http://www.healthfinder.gov/) This is a search portal for government and nonprofit agency health information. [http://www.caphis.mlanet.org/consumer/index.html](http://www.caphis.mlanet.org/consumer/index.html) A list of 100 high-quality Internet health sites. Beyond that, it may help you to know that it’s not always easy to find good info on certain topics, even for those of us with too much education and really fast internet connections. You can always contact health libraries for more info, I know that other libraries, including mine, offer e-mail reference services. (There is a listing of libraries by location on MedlinePlus.)