Web Research

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and that they dwell therein.
--Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960), African-American novelist, short story writer, folklorist, playwright and anthropologist.

I find myself researching things on the web for various reasons including work, school, and just general interest.

I have tried a number of tools to help with this research. Here are some of the things I have found.

The Process

After I find something on the Internet, I need to do something with it. The tools described below are part of the entire process to find the information and actually make it useful.

On the Macintosh

My home computer is a Macintosh. I'm using it for writing, blogging, thinking, and research. The web-based tools are much the same, but I find that the tools to actually do something with this research might be different.

Search

Searching the web can be frustrating One of the most difficult aspect of web research is finding things. The next most difficult is determining if the things you find are worth anything!

Like a great many people, one of my favorite general search sites is Google.

Other, specialized search engines may help you find relevant information more quickly. But there is a lot of "clutter" out there.

Co-Citer

I have resumed using an excellent piece of software for internet research--Cognitum Co-Citer. This tool allows you to extract text from web pages, organize it, add comments to it, and export it. I'll probably have some examples for later display on the web site.

OpenOffice

Another technique that I use is to cut and paste things into OpenOffice writer (see the open source tools page). This tends to make a page that contains all the graphics and other elements from the web page.

Updated: 11-Jul-2004