Searching Out Loud

Searching Out Loud is a digital age information and media literacy text book for independent investigators, researchers, consultants, educators, and any lifelong learner whose curiosity is matched only by their rejection of unquestioning assumptions. The concept of a "search book" is that... everyone searches, no one likes to search, and we put our faith in algorithms to complete our thoughts. This book is intended for someone who "produces" research as a scientist/academic, investigator/journalist, and/or consultant/legal professional. These are folks who are rewarded for their independence: Drawing conclusions supported by evidence, not a predetermined outcome. They convey intent just fine without the algorithms. The first two units instruct readers on how to locate, evaluate, and use online information in their evidence-based investigations. In units three and four we apply source knowledge and fact-finding to the perspective-taking needed to interpret how that same information is created, shaped, and presented. Understanding the motives of the provider is critical to any web-based investigation. It's also core to the content analysis of social media we now stream with fewer assumptions and a more critical eye for inspection. What ends up in our search results and news feeds -- and why? Those are questions that fall outside the search box and squarely in these pages. So too do answers to research questions that begin with a conditional reflex like "it depends" and "how likely is likelier?" Searching Out Loud takes the exchange between researchers and search engines out of one-way conversations and into the realm of detective work. The bullhorn-like proclamation of the book's title suggests that searching is neither introspective nor restricted to a hushed confession-like disclosures between petitioners and their technological priests. Rather, forming questions, matching patterns, unscrambling mixed signals, weighing explanations, and questioning the assumptions they're based on can create quite a commotion They pierce the silence of the screened-in user, opening the reader up to a transparent and repeatable way for us to engage colleagues, stakeholders, and even adversaries in the discovery, vetting, and integration of search results into our case work. For starters, the book shows readers how to place their own assumptions, intuitions, and curiosities above the commercial and often veiled interests of big search and social media. This distinction is key towards ensuring the integrity of the researcher and the independence of the investigator. So too, the nature of virtual investigations poses challenges to the collection and sense-making of an evidence trail formed through Internet-based research. There's nothing "plug and play" about composing and presenting case narratives gathered through the non-linear web. Our use cases enlist an interwoven dynamic of open source intelligence from trade directories, social news aggregators, and public records to academic archives, and specialty collections, many that escape search engine detection. The Knowledge Continuum is one of many unique and practical frameworks for imposing sequential order on an otherwise unstructured and meandering nature of digital fact-finding and evidence-gathering. Additionally the principles of Search Project Management are used to package this evidence into the searching, capture, and sense-making that precedes a Knowledge-ABLED outcome: calling our stakeholders to action through our research methods and final presentation.