You can locate a variety of material online, ranging from e-zines (electronic magazines) to blogs (Web logs) to conversations among people. Be careful to distinguish expertise from opinion and speculation.

Look for Electronic Publications. Wide public access to the Internet has given individuals and small interest groups an economical publication option. Evaluate and use such texts cautiously.

Browse the Blogs. Globe of Blogs at globeofblogs.com provides access to the personal, political, and topical commentaries of individuals around the globe. Google features blog searches by topic at google.com/blogsearch. You may want to use RSS (often expanded as “Real Simple Syndication”) software to alert you to breaking news or to sample blogging on a current topic.

Keep Up with the News. Using Google, select “News” to call up “Top Stories” and national or international coverage categories or to personalize your news search. Also visit the Web sites for news organizations (NBC, BBC, NPR, PBS Newshour, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal) to compare coverage and depth or to track recent stories. RSS feeds and mailing lists are available for news as well as specialized topics, such as daily quotes, biographies, and historical events on the current date from Britannica Online at http://newsletters.britannica.com/toolbox.