I don’t know what I don’t know

As a newspaper reporter, from time to time I was assigned to report on a subject that I did not know well.

I learned that if I didn’t know what questions to ask, I was at risk of being misled.

When these assignments came to me, I was unwilling to be taken advantage of due to my ignorance on the subject. How would you know what to question? He was vulnerable to all kinds of misinformation.

He didn’t know what he didn’t know.

At the risk of dating myself, I remember going to the public library and using the card catalog to do my research.

I never relied on a single book for reference. You couldn’t trust a book as a source in the same way that you would never use an interview as the only source for a story. I had to find out what else was available to me.

The same is true for today only in a different context: we have the Internet.

Think of the web as a virtual library. The analogy I am using is not just a source, like Google, to research.

Google is huge in its data collection. I love Google. I use it every day and find fabulous information. Google opens up the world in amazing ways. No doubt.

However, Google is like using a book for all your research. There are more “books” available for us to find the information we are looking for in addition to Google.

The difference in these virtual books varies from marginal to quite significant in what is available on any subject.

Search engines rank information based on mathematical algorithms. Basically, it is a popularity contest. The websites that get the most visits get the highest rating. In addition, the companies that pay the most money also get a great location. Below is a short list of search engines:

Google

AOL

Yahoo!

AOL

Yahoo!

Bing

High view

Excited

Galaxy

All the Web

The directories are compiled by real people. Directory panels evaluate a website and then categorize it based solely on content.

Directories:

• AboutUs.org: a wiki-based web directory.

• Ansearch – Search and web directories focused on the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

• Best of Web Directory – Lists well-designed, content-rich websites categorized by both subject and region. This is a paid service.

• JoeAnt: A community of editors from the now defunct Go.com volunteer-edited directory.

• Open Directory Project (also known as ODP or dmoz) – the largest directory on the web. Its open content is reflected on many sites, including Google Directory as of July 20, 2011.

• Starting Point Directory – A general human-edited directory that organizes sites by category.

• World Wide Web Virtual Library (VLIB) – The oldest directory on the Web.

• Yahoo! Directory: the first service that Yahoo! Offered.

Meta search engines are search engine sites that can include 10 to 90 search engines in one site.

Meta search engines:

Infospace.com

Info.com

Dogpile.com

Excite.com

Search.com

WebCrawler.com

Ixquick.com

Mamma.com

Metacrawler

Try an experiment. Pick a simple topic such as “publication” and look it up in several of these “books.” I bet you will be surprised how much information you get from each of them.

I don’t know what I don’t know.

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