Charting the Route Before You Research Your New Project

Let’s imagine you are intent on producing a resource manual notionally entitled How to Become an Expert on Light Bulbs (you wouldn’t, but let’s just hypothecate for illustration purposes). Make out a list of the pivotal aspects of the subject. It might pan out like this.

Light bulb sizes
Shapes
Power requirements
Manufacturers
Types of fitting
Novelty bulbs
Industrial bulbs
Lighting for sports stadia
Christmas lighting
Stage lighting
Street lighting
High intensity
Low intensity
…and so on

Now compare this listing with your list of what you know, what you don't know, and annotate each item on the list accordingly; tick for 'yes', cross for 'no'.

1. Connect to the Internet and open your browser - choose a search engine and type in ‘light bulbs’.

2. Start collecting links for everything you come across.

3. Divide the links into categories and sub-categories.

Finding out what you need to know online shouldn’t prove too difficult but you will cut down considerably on research time if you follow the directions outlined in the next section.

HOW TO CONDUCT INTENSIVE RESEARCH ONLINE

For best results the bulk of your research ought to be conducted online, but unless you know the shortcuts to effective cyberspace fact-finding, you could spend hours on end in fruitless searches. It's very easy to stray when you are using the search engines because loads of similar looking topics and dissertations abound on the Internet. But with your goals properly defined before you go out searching, you will be able to focus on exactly what it is you are setting out to uncover.

Comprehensive briefings are available in three authoritative reports you can read online or download for free.

How to Conduct Research on the Internet
http://www.tbchad.com/resrch.html
How to Conduct a Search Online
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/ivc/library/how1.htm
Internet Research - Finding Hard Data
http://www.bugsoft.com/research/index.html

Having absorbed the valuable information contained in these reports, I recommend you restrict your searching to http://www.google.com. Use the ‘advanced search’ facility and you’ll reduce your workload by several hours. For some of the items on the list where you thought you knew it all, you'll learn more; for those you marked with a cross, you will locate answers to further enhance your grasp on the topic.

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