Marshall, here do you go when YOU have a question?

★ wanayoo — archive 1999 http://www.howstuffworks.com/question68.htm

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Each weekday Marshall Brain answers questions submitted by the readers of How Stuff Works in the Question of the Day section of HSW. You can also view previously answered questions in the HSW Question Archive. Here is today's question!

Question

Marshall, where do you go when YOU have a question? What materials do you use to learn about new things?

Answer

I love to learn, and I read constantly because I enjoy it. So a lot of what I know comes in osmotically from whatever I happen to be reading.

When I have a specific question, one of the first places I turn to is the encyclopedia! Many people are amazed by this, but I LOVE encyclopedias. I have a 1974 edition of The World Book encyclopedia (go to a used book store and you can pick up a used set of encyclopedias for next to nothing). I have not read every word of it, but I have looked at every single page. It is amazing what you can learn. I also have Encyclopedia Britannica on CD, and I love it. There's a ton of information in EB.

I have a pretty good library at home and I can look things up in those books as well. The favorite books from my library are listed on the HSW books page.

Obviously I use the web a lot - that's why nearly every page on HSW has links. I find the information I need in search engines. It's a very tedious process at times, but if you are persistent you can find the answer to maybe 80% of the questions you might have using a web search engine. I happen to favor Infoseek, but I think each person finds a search engine that "feels good" to them. I also love Yahoo!

Finally, one of my favorite places is the library. Fortunately it's right on the way home from work and it's open late! It is unbelievable how many good books there are at the library.

Here are four of my favorite question/answer sites on the web. They can be very helpful, and they are also fun to browse through for the pure joy of learning!

Science Net - answers to many science questions
How things work - answers to hundreds of general and physics questions
Sci.chem FAQ - answers to many chemistry questions
The Skinny on... - look at bottom of the article for a list of others

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