While reading the two chapters in Research Strategies I couln’t help but relate to a lot of the points Badke made about how we use technology today to get information. I found myself saying “wow that’s so true” on more than one occasion, specifically relating to finding good reliable sources on the web. Like Badke said “not all information is equal.” Living in the information age it can seem overwhelming the amount of information we have at our disposal. All that is needed on our part is a simple Google search. Just google “egg” and you will get close to 300 million results as opposed to “omelette recipe” which yields just under 2 million results. Sometimes it’s hard to weed through the information to find a real credible source and even harder to find an unbiased one at that. I really liked how Badke described the primary and secondary sources of information. I know when I do research, whether for school papers or out of sheer curiosity to learn more about a subject, I never stopped to think if the information I was reading was the author’s own as opposed to someone’s assessment of the author’s information. I feel after reading these two chapters I have a better knowledge and understanding of how to effectively use different types of research sources, whether books or the web, to write better research papers or even just find a good omelette recipe. If anybody wants to get started on their search for information then Badke’s book will point you in the right direction.
