Our world is full of evolving information, that is constantly adapting to the way everyone uses knowledge. Reading the first chapter in William Badke’s, “Research Strategies: finding your way through the information fog,” embarks the reader on the ever growing infinite world of researching information. There is such a large quantity of information where the quality of the information we research is effected. In the early life of knowledge, people were given the job to safeguard important facts. Until writing became the next secure way to pass along information, followed by the printing press and finally the internet. Since knowledge is easily accessible today, such things as the information’s author, credibility, and main objective has to be validated.
Chapter 8 helps us to learn how to navigate different methods to efficiently research information we need. Reading this chapter shows us that researching is performed best when looking at the details of information and not getting lost in the extra knowledge, unless it is really necessary. Using the table of contents, preface, index, and main points of a chapter or book can help us find the authors main ideas on the subject. Methods such as photo copying, note taking, using a computer, and writing can help a researcher collect information to use later. There are pros and cons to using different techniques of information gathering. A researcher should beware of plagiarizing when writing there paper and using different methods of collecting notes.
After reading the first chapter, we, the students, are brought back to the ’90s where we had no “net” and only had books or words passed down to us as an option to get any information regarding our topic. Luckily, we didn’t have to solely base any of our work on the words that were passed down through our forefathers, fore-mothers, etc. As Badke stated, we are fortunate enough to have the “net”, we also have to take that not everything found on the internet can be wholly trusted since there are no gatekeepers. For example, most professors don’t prefer for their students to use any of the information found on Wikipedia because any of the information on that site could be generated or changed into someone else’s opinions. Therefore, students are urged to use credible sources, such as websites ending in .edu, .org, .gov, .etc.
In chapter 8, Badke gives us pointers when it comes to note taking. Before, I always thought that I would remember where exactly I would remember where I learned upon that information but it’s not always the case. However, what he encourages students to do isn’t what I do but I, instead, choose to leave a Post-It note on the page so I can find it easily later on. When I do find information relevant to my topic in a short article, I choose to highlight it. Of course, it is vital for us to leave an asterisk or bibliography in the end to give the rightful owner his/her credit for his/her work. Why leave an important piece of information that isn’t yours as your own and risk the chance of your professor immediately giving you an ‘F’ or worse when all you had to do was cite where you got this information from?