Monday, July 20, 2015

Strange Hobbies

Strange  Hobbies..... let's see.
Do I think I have a strange hobby? No. Not to me, anyway.
I find it incredibly relaxing, I scroll thru pages and wait for the words to jump out at me- it's like their highlighted, waiting for me to find them. Now the next thing to do is get clients.
If you need a researcher or you know someone who does, or your company just lost their best online detective- we should talk.
I will be posting more common research endeavors like : Genealogy-
Legal People Search- (No, I'm not going to help you find the guy who turned you down and didn't ever call you.)
Property-
Money Search-

Etc....

Tenacious

What does Tenacious mean, or more importantly what does it stand for when it comes to research...
Some people, expect to type in a query and some robotic being will magically poof their answer, when it doesn't they give up.
That's when I come in...
To me being tenacious means I am driven beyond all hope of sanity to find what it is I'm looking for, I am like a dog chewing a bone- I cannot stop until I have had the "eureka" moment. Everything ceases to exist, and my every waking thought is that which I search for, constantly turning over, and over in my mind.
To me the biggest reward is finding and linking the subject I am searching, similar to finding the missing piece to your favorite jigsaw puzzle.

What is (online) research?


Many publications are moving from print to digital format, placing a significant amount of information online for users to sift through and try to make sense of.  However, despite the rise of powerful search engines such as Google, online information is not always readily accessible. This is particularly true of technical and scientific data that are often restricted to subscription-based journals and esoteric publications that aren’t listed on page one of Google’s search results.

Likewise, finding correct and relevant information takes time, a luxury that many companies and businesses do not have. For example, a law firm may wish to provide its readers with an article documenting traffic accident statistics state-to-state but not have the time to research every state. Alternately, a debt consolidation company may wish to know about the most common sources of unsecured debt so that it can offer services tailored to those debts. The solution to such dilemmas has been to hire freelance Internet researchers who are adept at finding online information on such different topics.

Internet research is much more complicated than simply looking up answers on Wikipedia (which is NOT recommended, by the way). You will be sifting through some esoteric journals and textbooks, assuming that the business has paid subscriptions to them. You will be perusing the websites of government and national organizations. You will be looking at business earnings reports and cash flow statements. You may also need to contact scientists, statisticians and professors directly in order to obtain the most relevant information for your assignment. The bottom line here is that, for every claim made, you will need to back it up with hard data and references; no educated guesses are allowed.