Research

The internet has had a huge impact on research. I have an incredible collection of facts and figures and information of all kinds at my fingertips. If I want to mention the world population, I can get an instantaneous estimate. If I want to share a song that is special to me, I can find the lyrics and copy them here. If I want to comment on last week’s news, I can pull up countless reports and related trivia. If I’m not sure I’m spelling or using a word correctly, I can go digging for it in either my word processor or in an online dictionary.

Having information so accessible doesn’t make gathering it instantaneous. Nor does the internet contain the resources to make certain everything I want to say is factual. For example, a couple of weeks ago I wrote a short news release for the local newspaper about the historical collection of that newspaper at the library. I wanted to include the dates of the collection. As far as I know I was the first to publish those dates. Thus, I had to make a trip to the library and check and record the dates before I could finish the article.

Sometimes one can write around missing facts. “The library has an extensive collection of this newspaper on microfilm.” “The more than 6 billion people in the world ...” Other times, doing the required research is the only way to produce good writing. This can be quite annoying when one has time to either write or do the research but not both. When is it better to write around missing facts and when is it better to gather the information now and schedule another time to finish the writing project? If that project is part of an ongoing discussion, will what I want to write still be relevant when I return to the project?

We have an incredible amount of information at our fingertips, which makes tossing around unverified information and ignoring readily-available standards less excusable than ever before. I’m sure that’s a good thing. It is also rather annoying.