The Information Explosion

We are living in the midst of the greatest explosion of information the world has ever seen. No other generation has been blitzed by the avalanche of books, newspapers, magazines, journals, surveys, advertisements, videos, television shows, movies, maps, charts, graphs, CDs, and tapes that we encounter daily. And that doesn't take into account all the online sources, including Web sites, electronic bulletin boards, Listservs, blogs, newsgroups, and e-mail. More information has been produced in the last fifty years than in the previous five thousand.
Consider these facts about the amount of information available to us today:
•    Fifty thousand books and ten thousand magazines are published every year in America alone.
•    Every day, seven thousand scientific studies are written.
•    One daily edition of the New York Times contains more information than an educated person in the sixteenth century absorbed in his or her entire life.
•    The amount of information produced doubles every two years.

There is so much information that the huge Library of Congress in Washington D.C. has converted and stored all the important information it contains into digital form, "The American Memory." All new information is added to the col¬lection as it is acquired. The information includes written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience-millions of pieces of information. Futurists predict that this onslaught of information will only increase.
What impact do these facts have on you as you prepare your research paper? All the information you need is probably available, but you must know how to locate and sort the useful facts from the useless ones. And with so much out there, knowing how to do research can save you many frustrating hours. Start this process by examining the different kinds of material you can find.