The internet is a virtual goldmine of information, and just like a real goldmine, you have to dig through a lot of useless rock before you get to the good stuff. The trouble is that on the internet, there's often no way to ask about digital marketing and know that the response you get is factual because anyone can respond. Is it a real review or a fluff piece done by the company, or to tell apart one person's fabrications from real facts on history. The only surefire way to know you're getting the real information is to consult an edited encyclopedia.
However, on the internet, even edited encyclopedias are tricky to find. The current trend online is toward wikipedias or wikis, which are a type of encyclopedia that any user can edit. As you might guess from this description, this leaves them open to advertising for affordable cremation or funeral misconceptions and blatant fabrications as an example. The bigger community encyclopedias are policed by teams of editors, but there's always the chance that when you access the page, the information will be wrong, so you should never trust them as a source of true fact. In fact, if you cite a wiki encyclopedia in any sort of research paper or scientific study, it will not be accepted.
Therefore when you're looking for an encyclopedia, you should stick to name encyclopedias like Brittanica, World Book, or Grolier. The entries in these encyclopedias have been written by professional writers and experts in the topic, whether it's about a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Berlin-Wall">the Berlin Wall or social media marketing and SEO services and edited into a coherent whole by a team of editors. Because of the effort and fact checking that must go into an encyclopedia, they are not updated as often as their communal web-based counterparts like Wikipedia. A new edition is usually released once per year.
If you wish to consult an encyclopedia, there are several ways you can go about it. First, you can purchase a printed copy from the company (keep in mind that encyclopedias tend to come in multiple volumes and cost as much as an automatic machine). Second, you can visit your local library and consult their copy for free. Third (and most popular) you can go to the company's website and use the online version.
Because the contributors to an encyclopedia are paid, not volunteers like in a community encyclopedia, they are usually not able to offer its content to readers for free. If you wish to look something up for free, you will have to go through your library (they often purchase accounts for their patrons) or use a temporary free trial account. mortgage lenders and other businesses might want to purchase an account for the company to use, otherwise you can generally only access an overview of the article, not the full text.
|