Internet Research - Time-saving Tools

Published March 2003 – NCRA – Journal of Court Reporting

The Internet is a powerful research tool and can be used to streamline research time. Here are some tips to maximize your time.

Search for a company’s Website to find plant locations, addresses, and names of products. Most corporate companies now have a History section on their Website. This can be used to find names of past corporate officers, names of discontinued products, or the past name of the company.

Most large law firms have their own Websites that list addresses and phones numbers of their offices, names of attorneys within the firm, and sometimes cites of cases that the firm has litigated. Check the Website of each state bar association for names and addresses of attorneys.

Use Websites like MapQuest.com to check addresses and SuperPages.com and Switchboard.com for names of companies. Switchboard.com has an interesting feature called “What’s nearby?” This feature can be used to find names of companies nearby a known entity.

As an example, an accident happened near John’s Rent-A-Car in front of a restaurant named LA/BAO on Main Street, Anytown. By finding John’s Rent-A-Car on Main Street and the restaurants nearby, you could find the spelling of La Bou.

A real timesaver is bookmarking favorite Websites. When setting up a Favorites file, remember to set up some type of folder system so that you aren’t scrolling through dozens and dozens of Web addresses to find the right one.

Searching the Internet using search engines can be time-consuming and produce more listings than you will ever need, most of which are irrelevant.

A popular search engine, Google.com, has several nice features that save time. Google.com has a unique relevance ranking system and, except for special bar listings at the top, does not return listings of paid advertisers first. It also will ask “Did you mean” and list an alternative spelling. Reading the sections on Google’s Webpage entitled “Search Tips” and “Advanced Search Tips” will help you find ways to fine-tune your search.

One way to fine-tune a search is to use “operators,” which are symbols that represent a specific action. Three search operators that can be used to narrow the results of a search are the plus sign, minus sign, and quote marks. The plus and minus signs need a space in front of them to work properly.

The plus sign has several uses. It will include common words in the search that Google.com excludes or will include Roman numerals in a search, i.e., +on time or section +I, and will also search for a combination of words, i.e., Mary +lamb. The search results will include Websites that contain all of those words, but not necessarily as a phrase.

The minus sign will eliminate Websites from a search. The example given in the

Google Advanced Search Tips is “bass.” Is it fishing or music? Searching for

bass –music eliminates any references to music.

The quote marks will search for a complete phrase and only produce results with that

exact phrase within the quote marks, i.e., “TENS unit.” Google is not case specific and will also return listings of “Tens unit.”

Typing any of these operators into the Google search box eliminates using the “Advanced Search” page, thus, saving a step in your search process.

You can use any of these operators to search for unfamiliar terms. A witness may say,

“If he doesn't hit those metrics, there is no bonus." The dictionary definition of metrics doesn’t fit the context of this sentence. Maybe the witness misspoke and meant to say matrix. If you know this is related to the banking industry, you could search for metrics +bank. If you don’t know the industry, you could do a search for the phrase “hit metrics” and find that the term “metrics” is used in eBusiness, databases, and the banking industry.

Beware! Most Websites are not spell-checked. Finding a particular spelling on the Internet does not mean that it’s correct.

Also remember, when you are surfing the Web, unless you have both up-to-date virus

protection and a firewall installed on your computer, you are vulnerable to the outside

world. It’s very important to maintain your antivirus and firewall software and keep it up to date on a daily or, at least, weekly basis. Remember you have no idea who is operating the Website you are visiting.

Happy Surfing!

Cindy Naffin, Thousand Oaks, California, cindynaffin@earthlink.net