Internet Research for Tax Practitioners
Introduction................... 2
Searching Methodology....... 2
The
Simple Search 2
B.
The Topical Search 3
The
Complex Search 3
The
Supplemental Search 5
Conclusion 6
Internet
Research for Tax Practitioners
The Internet is known for being a vast depository for information, but it is also known for being a difficult place to find information. The searcher finds herself inside a large warehouse that contains incredible amounts of material, but she notices that the shelves are not marked and that boxes are strewn in the aisles - if she finds anything useful it will indeed be the proverbial needle in the haystack. However, this image of the Internet is changing both because of the newest interface to it, the World Wide Web, and the development of large databases used to track the information available. No longer is the Internet useful to a select few in the scientific community. Now anyone can locate information on the Internet quickly and effectively.
But before one can begin unlocking the secret vaults of the Internet, the tools necessary to break in must be understood. The various searching interfaces currently available on the Internet must be approached with a knowledge of what can be done with them and what their limitations are. But once these parameters are known, anyone can surf the net for substance.
Once the tools for searching the Internet are known, the searcher can move on to deciding how she wishes to locate information. Basically, four methods of searching exist. The first is a simple search, where the searcher wishes to locate only general information, such as finding out if a company maintains a Web site. The second type of search is a topical one to locate links for a particular subject, such as Software Patents. The third kind of search is probably the most common type done by Internet users, the complex search. Here the searcher wishes to find very specific information or perhaps a particular set of documents, such as papers on state taxation. The last type of search, the supplemental search, rounds out the methods by attempting to track down additional and tangentially related content.
Doing a simple search is more of deciding how much time the searcher wants to take rather than being troubled by which tool to use. The key to a successful simple search is understanding what is being searched for on the Internet.
If the searcher wants to find an index to bookmark, the WWW Virtual Library will assist her in finding a site to mark. If the searcher wishes to locate a particular company on the Internet, Yahoo provides the quickest path to the company’s site. On the other hand, should the searcher need to retrieve a particular document that she knows the name of, Lycos or Open Text would be the fastest way to find it on the Internet.
The WWW Virtual Library is best for quick searches of indices. Yahoo works well if some sort of identifying name is known. Lycos, WebCrawler, and Open Text operate quickly to locate information from a file name or partial URL. And, of course, DejaNews, works best for finding Usenet articles.
All of the above searches used very narrow criteria that utilized the search engines to retrieve the information sought. The tool chosen represented the quickest manner to get the information, but not the only way to get the information. By recognizing the strengths of the tools, the searcher should be able to determine quickly which one will best suit her needs for a simple search.
If the searcher wants to find an index to information on a particular topic, she would do best by using the WWW Virtual Library to locate quickly a subject index. Additionally, if the particular topic is not listed on the WWW Virtual Library, Yahoo provides the searcher with the ability to search in a topical manner. In fact, Yahoo’s topical searches are very effective because they return several different indices that furnish the searcher a great variety to pick from.
When performing a topical search on Yahoo, it is often good practice to think of associative words. For example, if the topic that the searcher wished to locate was ‘law,’ its associative words would be ‘legal’ and ‘justice,’ just to name a few. Therefore a search done on all words would be more effective than just searching for one. On the other hand, if the results returned from this search are too extensive, the searcher may narrow her search by specifying fewer words as search terms.
The complex search is the search that most users of the Internet will want to do. The idea is to get the same functionality out of the information on the Internet as one might get from information stored on Lexis or Westlaw.
This search requires the use of multiple tools and is a combination of the simple and topical searches. However, it differs from those searches because, instead of attempting to locate one particular piece of information, the complex search endeavors to find all the information on the Internet about a particular item within a reasonable period of time.
To begin, the searcher must determine some specific key words that will locate the information sought. For example, perhaps the searcher was interested in intellectual property rights on the national information infrastructure. The words ‘intellectual,’ ‘property,’ ‘rights,’ ‘national,’ ‘information,’ and ‘infrastructure’ will provide a good base for locating information.
Next, the searcher should do a specific search on either Lycos, Open Text, or WebCrawler using the key words or some subset of them. She should take time to go over each listing, especially if she used Lycos or Open Text, to quickly determine what links may be of interest. If the results returned no useful information, she must adjust the key words to find ones that will provide useful information.
With a list of sites that might contain effective information, the searcher would examine each one for it usefulness and also resolve whether it contains links to further information on the Internet. At this time, she should be looking for key themes in the information that can be used to help determine further key words. As was noted above, associative words can be very beneficial to uncovering more information.
Once a theme is discovered, the searcher should try the subject index at Yahoo to see if any additional sites are found. Once again, by examining the annotations for each site in Yahoo, she can determine which ones would be valuable to examine. She should then examine these sites, again looking for common themes.
At this point, the searches should have generated a number of key words, names, and pointers that can be used to dig deeper into the Lycos, Open Text, and WebCrawler databases. The searcher should notice that some the same information is appearing in the results. If the new searches are returning some similar material the searcher can use this to help keep the search on track. While new information will appear, some repeats of previously found information should pop up as the search continues. Essentially this aids in verifying the effectiveness of the new search.
Throughout this process, the searcher would be creating a list of links, either on paper or as a set of bookmarks in her browser, that she can return to after completing the searches. If she feels that she has not covered enough material, she can continue this process until she has. However, the main point is to concentrate the initial searches so that the information can be located quickly.
At the end of this process, the searcher should have collected a number of important sites containing the information originally sought. In addition, she should also have a good list of key words that can be saved for future reference. When she wishes to update the information that she collected, she can use those key words to look for new information. The complex search method pulls together the information on the Internet and allows the searcher to create a mini-database in the particular area in which she is searching.
The last type of search is used to look through information that either would not normally be in traditional storage areas of the Internet, like Usenet, or requires more human intervention.
Searching the Usenet is useful to locate up to date comments on current happenings. The DejaNews site permits such searching to find pertinent articles on subjects carried over the Usenet. For the search to be successful, the searcher must be sure to define key words representative of the information sought. To this end, she might use the key words developed through a complex search. Once articles are found after a search, the searcher should take care to check the credibility of the article writer to see if he is truly up to date. This might be done by simply reading the article, but in other cases it might be necessary to look at other postings by the writer to ensure the veracity of his work.
Other types of supplemental searches include posting a question to a mailing list or newsgroup dedicated to the topic area interested in. For example, an attorney with access to the Legal Domain Network could post a question about a particular bankruptcy problem on the law.listserv.banklaw newsgroup. Other subscribers to the newsgroup could read the message and post replies that would give a direct response or point to information on the Internet about bankruptcy.
Overall, the supplemental search is designed to clean up any loose ends and to find material that is kept in non-traditional ways on the Internet and therefore cannot be found through the search engines.
Understanding the tools available to locate information on the Internet provides the searcher with a new resource. Much of what is on the Internet is not maintained in commercial databases, such as Lexis and Westlaw. Without the ability to tap into the Internet, the searcher cannot claim to have diligently investigated all possible sources of information. That one key item may only exist on the Internet.
The Internet is no longer a vast untamed warehouse of information. Rather it has become a distributed database of useful information stored in a multitude of forms, but easily accessible though common interfaces. While all the bugs have not been worked out and nothing can guarantee that all materials have been found, the level of sophistication in searching for information on the Internet is quite high. Thus, the Internet becomes yet another tool for locating information electronically and not just neat technology. The searcher can access its immense breadth and surf the ‘net for substance.