A to Z: G is for Google Searches

/begin rant

I know that I have an unfair advantage over a lot of writers: I have a history degree. Not only do I have a solid basis for many European and Canadian time periods, but I also know how to go about finding the information, examining it, evaluating it, and figuring out if it's a lot of crap or not.

However, I think any writer worth their salt should be doing more than just a google search for their books when research is called for.  Let me give you an example.

Do a search on life in the middle ages. You'll start to find that a number of websites are all saying the same information – word for word. That must mean that information is correct, right? No. What is means is that a number of people copied from one source. Now, look at the page information. Many times, you'll discover that this is an elementary or junior high school project. Can you find the sources of this information? No? Then how can you confirm it?

Here's another one. Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy. Now, it's not as bad these days, but in the weeks following the movie, "Becoming Jane", the first couple of pages of Google had information on Jane Austen's torrid love affair with Tom Lefroy. Wikipedia's entry on Jane Austen had an entire paragraph dedicated to this, even.

And guess what? It was a load of caca. There is no evidence that Jane Austen ran off with Tom Lefroy. There is evidence that they behaved shamelessly together at a dance, flirting and being silly. There is evidence that Tom Lefroy might have told a relative that he had a schoolboy crush on her at one point. That's pretty much where it ends. Yet, if I didn't know better and just listened to the internet, I would  have had a very different biography of Austen.

Looking on the internet just isn't enough. Go read some magazines. Check out a couple of books. Email an expert. Watch a documentary. You'll soon discover that they all have a slightly different point of view of things. And that is where you start to learn what your own take is on things, if a point of view is even factually correct, and understand how to use it in your own writing.

/end rant