Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part 1 Getting started in journalism
- Part 2 Writing skills
- Part 3 Understanding the law
- Part 4 Research skills
- 13 Research and finding things
- 14 Facts and figures
- 15 Questions and interviews
- Part 5 Being professional in journalism
- Bibliography
- Further reading
- Index
13 - Research and finding things
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part 1 Getting started in journalism
- Part 2 Writing skills
- Part 3 Understanding the law
- Part 4 Research skills
- 13 Research and finding things
- 14 Facts and figures
- 15 Questions and interviews
- Part 5 Being professional in journalism
- Bibliography
- Further reading
- Index
Summary
Using the internet
In the main, computers are able to do the remarkable tasks they do and perform extraordinarily complex calculations just because they are able to do something very simple. Computers can tell the difference between a 0 and 1, or they can tell when something is “on” and when it is “off”, or they can detect the presence or absence of an electrical impulse.
Just knowing the difference between a one and a nought, or “on” or “off” is all it takes to make your computer so terribly smart.
Computers make sense, via codes called programs, of squillions of 1s and 0s (or “ons” and “offs”, impulses or no impulses).
They are also very good at recognising combinations of these things. And this is where Boolean algebra, or Boolean logic, becomes important for those who use computers to find things or conduct research.
George Boole was a 19th century mathematician who was interested in the algebraic relationships that arise when combinations of data or cases are considered.
For example: We have this. Quite separately we also have that.
So what happens, Boole pondered, when we consider this AND that together? What happens when we consider this OR that? Or this but NOT that? And so on.
So, if you give your computer directions on how to search for information based on Boolean logic (i.e. find this in combination with that but not with those, etc.) you may get useful results – instead of being swamped by garbage.
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- Information
- So You Want To Be A Journalist? , pp. 283 - 296Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007