When researching, it’s best not to go off the first link you see on Google. Google
is very broad and because the Internet is accessible to anyone, information seen on a
website isn’t always necessarily valid. A lot of times, links from Google are primarily to
sell something or to persuade, rather then actually being informative. With many search
engines like Google, the links that show up first or in the first few pages show up because
they get a lot of hits, not because they’re the best source for your research. Some websites
even pay people to make the website popular so that it can be on that first page of
Google. A website being popular doesn’t necessarily mean its because of the “reliable
information” that it has, but because of the amount of money it has to put into it.
Just like majority of people, the first place I would search to do research was
Google. Google is the easiest and fastest way to find something online, but with this
challenge I learned that they’re other means of doing research away from Google. Being
that technology is so advanced, we are now able to have an online library that is very
extensive and organized. Overwhelming at first, but with this challenged I learned how
to search for specific topics and more importantly where to look. Unlike Google, a library
catalog like Minerva is a lot more reliable. Everything on it has had to go through a
publication process so going to the catalog for research you know you’re gathering
legitimate information.