Have you ever searched for some information on a topic you wanted to
learn and become frozen when you see the sheer amount of information
that pops up? This happens to everyone. If you are one of those
people, like me, who play videogames from time to time, then you
could probably relate this feeling to when you are attempting to
character build in an RPG. It just becomes a question of what the
best path to take or the best path to learn is. I have been there.
Everyone has been there. Luckily for us, the solution is rather
simple.
The first thing that you need to do is relax. If you get stressed out
about choices, like I do, this could be the most difficult step. Just
relax. Take things one step at a time. What, exactly, are you trying
to learn about? Whatever it is, the best place to begin would
probably be Wikipedia, rather than Google. Why is that, you may ask.
The answer is simple: A Wikipedia article is going to be a good
general overview of a topic and it will help you determine how you
should be utilize Google for further searching.
The second thing you should do is start your actual search. Usually,
when I am trying to avoid information overload, I start with
Wikipedia. On Wikipedia, I will find the general article on the topic
that I am trying to research. From there, I am able to determine two
things: whether there is a need for more research and what direction
that research will need to take. So, depending on the answers to
those two questions, I will know what I need to do. If further
research is required, I will have very likely narrowed my topic. If I
find that, upon searching for my now narrowed topic, I am still
getting lost when I run a search, I repeat the process.
A general tip that I can offer is to ignore forums. If you are
unfamiliar with forums, and they pop up in your search results,
ignore them. For those who are unfamiliar with a topic, forum results
can very easily take you off track or provide you with misinformation
(due to forum members posting incorrect information, or because the
topic is being misunderstood by the person searching). This is
nothing against forums, I just find that they can very easily throw
information at you that seems applicable but is actually very wrong.
Information overload is something that is becoming more and more
commonplace given all of the various sources of information that we
all have at our disposal. This is both a good and a bad thing. If
someone is well versed in the best methods of researching, this
information can be a boon. If someone is not used to it, however, it
can become very difficult to get the information that they are
looking for simply because of all of the choices that they have to
make.
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