Infomancy n. 1.The field of magic related to the conjuring of information from the chaos of the universe. 2.The collection of terms, queries, and actions related to the retrieval of information from arcane sources.

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New Rules About Research

April 22nd, 2007 by Christopher Harris

In the spirit of Bill Mahr, I have a few new rules about research.

1) Google is not a source. No, I’m sorry. You did not get your information from Google. Google doesn’t publish information, they just aggregate it. Search engines help you find information, but they are not the source of the information. When you are citing sources, you need to give credit to the actual place where the information or picture is located.

2) One is none, and two is one. This rule comes from a variety of sources, including the maxim for flashlights in serious situations like caving. If you have one tool, then you effectively have none because of the source for failure. If you have two, then you can hopefully count on one, but one is none. This is why, among other very silly reasons, that I tend to have three flashlights on me at any given time. In the world of library research, the same is true. Having one source is as good as having none. I don’t care if the source is Britannica or Wikipedia, one source has no validity.

Posted in infomancy, search | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “New Rules About Research”

  1. Doug Johnson Says:
    April 22nd, 2007 at 4:21 pm

    How about:

    There is no such thing as unbiased information.

    Doug

  2. Christopher Harris Says:
    April 22nd, 2007 at 5:10 pm

    Heh, goes right up there with “My mom printed it out from the Internet.” Informational bias is a great reason to always follow “One is none, and two is one.”