Google: Your Friend

"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go." 

E.L. Doctorow

Are you a writer? Do you call yourself a writer? Then you, my friend, need GOOGLE as a friend. I read so many times people asking simple questions to something that they themselves, had they asked google first, would already know the answer to.
 
Often when I’m looking for a blog topic for the day all I have to do is google anything about writing. It hands me over to numerous pages and that is when I click something and lo and behold, something clicks for me. Then I go on to write for about an hour and sometimes it often leads to yet another possibility for a blog post.

I’m often surprised when someone, say a journalist, who sits and writes and gets paid for their work, often times doesn’t even do ample research in bringing you a story. They just write what they gather as information and thats that, no fact finding mission involved. The bad thing in delivering non-factual evidence to the public, we as readers believe it to be truth and judge a person as such.  Lives get tarnished because of misinformation, but often as is the case, the newspaper never retracts the false data, and if they do, it is found buried underneath where no one is bound to read. Me, I like to go on a fact finding mission so I can bring you as close to the truth that you need to be without second guessing what I’m writing.

I read a funny quote. I’m sure you seen this one going around the social scene a gazillion times:

“ Don’t believe every thing you read on the internet.” Abraham Lincoln

Why is that funny? Because you’re reading it from the internet, and the author is Abe Lincoln, whom you know was not around when the internet surfaced. So you are to surmise, that this is either truth or fiction. In writing, even fiction needs to hold some truth to it, or your readers will scratch their heads and wonder what nail your driving into plastic. I say plastic because it is easy to drive home a nail in wood, but not so easy into plastic. Meaning, the reader is not buying what you’re selling.

There are many search engines if you just do the research. Go ahead, google search engines. Google is nice enough to give you them too! So on your journey as a budding writer, do not hesitate in having google as your friend. Get to know it intimately and use the settings, a lot of times they work but don’t get all the gunk that you really don’t need. Anything after page one, you’re chancing what comes up on the screen when you click the offering.

With google as my witness, the things I speak of are true to the best of my knowledge. But please, don’t just trust me on that, google what you’re not understanding. Research and dig, until you come upon the truth. It’s out there, just waiting for you.
 
“Don’t believe everything you read on the internet” ~ Joni ~  Now THAT is a name you can trust!