I spoke today to the graduate student research methods class on how “research” doesn’t always mean academic work and writing and explained to them how I do research for magazine articles and books that I have written.
Many of the examples that I showed them were how to access and find data on the Internet.
At the end of class, one student offered this additional example: Performing a Google search for the phrase “Do Not Distribute” uncovers plenty of documents that company employees have posted on the Internet, not thinking that they would be accessible to the outside world.
I did a quick search of the phrase, and what I also discovered was that “Confidential” and “For Official Use Only” are also handy phrases to search. Lots of documents out there, particularly draft press releases.
