When you need to gather information quickly, sometimes the internet gets in the way. This causes poor and uninformed decisions because the internet has many fatal flaws this method avoids.
It seems logical to simply search for fundamental concepts and then draft your report, but instant distraction happens with most. Search engines even have bias.
What you need is a method to draft a research report outline quickly! A technique that focuses you on moving towards qualified answers rather than looking at a blank page.
Have You Ever Faced Distraction Trying To Research A Decision?
It ends all the shared internet research mistakes because it starts incrementally. You won't fall down a rabbit hole of YouTube videos or have the burden of endless distractions. This unique approach helps produce an outline, then the first draft quickly.
The secret is using artificial intelligence available to anyone on the internet. What's different is how you use it. Rather than clicking links with a search engine, you'll use it to extract key ideas.
Organizing those key ideas into common themes or topic groups. Then you can formulate the outline for research, special reports, or other short writing pieces.
Executives use this method to get up to date on a topic quickly. A research assistant uses it to get something on paper in a way that ends writer's block.
A Fast-Track Research Outline Method That Eliminates Writers Block
Is it a professional research method? Of course not. Instead, you get a quick approach that brings top earners and executives a draft outline for research efforts.
Your time is too valuable to be dredging the internet for a few nuggets of information. What you need is answers, key ideas, and focus on driving towards a decision.
This method works as well for students as it does for highly paid professionals because it goes quickly. It's a starting place and not the end of the research.
- Search Key Question to Answer
- Start with a critical question you want to answer or thesis,
- Paste question into your preferred Search Engine,
- Extract Key Ideas into Cards
- Use only text from Search results for key ideas,
- Write one key statement on each index card,
- Use text descriptions to formulate topic clusters,
- Organize Cards into Outline
- Around each topic cluster, you'll have a chapter,
- Put each card in a logical order for the paper you're writing,
- Expand Outline with Primary Sources
- Leave the internet to work with primary sources,
- Drill down into authoritative sources using research services,
- Add notes to outlines to fill out body and write the draft,
- END
At this point, you'll have a good draft of your research. Everything you need for a feature article or a report. The key is you'll know more about the topic than when you started.
It's a simple method not intended to replace deep-dive research but instead to outline and focus that effort. Rather than wandering around the internet, you extract key ideas and concepts to frame your work.
You then take this framework or outline away from the search engines to know research services. Getting away from the search engine is key to writing valuable materials.
When I train copywriters and technical writers, this method quickly gets them past a blank page. They can extract critical points relevant to the question at hand.
The key points have better value than what you'll find with any secondary source. Understand there is an unlimited supply of speculation, guesses, and commentary on every topic.
Suppose you're going to write something useful or get to a specific decision of value. In that case, you need to understand how research on the internet works. Most of what you find via search engines will be marketing-oriented.
Using Artificial Intelligence To Start Your Research At Light Speed
It works because search engines have historical context to many questions. They also have more horsepower to mine the internet for relevant topics.
Search engines extract key ideas and topics to get a behavioral response from the visitor, then measure those materials' quality by how long you stay on that page.
You use their artificial intelligence to sort through volumes of potential sources to extract a few. Popular and machine-relevant topics are helpful if you are writing for an external audience.
These topics may be familiar to you, while some may not. What the search does is remove the internal bias you have around the question.
WARNING: Search engines are highly biased. You want to use the TOR Onion browser or a proxy, so the search engine does NOT recognize you. It's getting harder to do actual research with search engine bias.
You use the search engine to extract key ideas and topics based on their judgment that forms ranking. It doesn't mean the underlying materials are credible, only that they are popular according to the engine.
This method gets you a research-based outline quickly. Perfect for professionals. It helps you use specific tools rather than falling for the distractions.
001_I0516A
Justin Hitt has more than two decades of experience transforming business relationships into profits for clients. Practicing risk and project management in high stakes environments. Featured in Six Sigma Magazine and Greater China CRM. Author of numerous books, reports, and training programs on strategic relations.