An Article Writer’s Search History is the Most Confusing Thing Ever

I’ve often wondered this. If Google was a person (it’s not), could read all your searches (it can), and could build a profile on you (I hope it’s not that common), what must it think of an article writer or a content writer? If you really think about it, most professionals or even casual internet users often have phases of interest.

A researcher looking into human biochemistry will focus on a certain area for a while, then move on. A gamer will pull up all sorts of data for a game before losing interest in the game and moving on to a new one. Someone who likes to experiment with their cooking might pick absurdly weird ingredients to research, but there would still be a pattern—like maximizing protein. A cybersecurity professional might go down a rabbit hole trying to hack hotel room RFID cards. In all these cases (and most others), there’s a pattern. Things build up and wane.

This gradient is lacking in the profession of writing. Even art has this gradient. An artist might look up references of art forms, a musician might look up related composers within a genre, or someone trying to be the best wine-taster in their town might be super into cataloging fruity notes.

But as a writer, I jump directly from how Bluetooth works to the right mixture of silica to binder for the most detailed sand casting output. Strange, isn’t it? No connection whatsoever between consecutive searchers, or sets of searchers. There’s evidence of several completely different careers. If Google wanted to serve you job ads, it simply won’t know whether you want to sell electronics in a store or start your own sand casting business.

And each search makes perfect sense at the time. You do follow-up searches, look at different articles, see related searches and questions, etc. A writer doesn’t need to master a subject forever. They only need to understand enough to explain it accurately like an expert without leaving gaps. The assignment ends, and the brain moves on. From a mattress expert to an insurance guide overnight.

Strange Things Writers End Up Knowing

A biochemist has biochemistry. A gamer has games. A chef has food. A writer might have all three before lunch. And during all that, we become temporary experts. I always like to think that this is what we get paid for. The ability to learn and then explain.

• We pick up random technical facts that will probably never be useful again. Did you know that the first actual computer “bug” was literally an insect trapped inside the Harvard Mark II computer in 1947? That’s the same year the Cold War began, the UN voted to divide Palestine, and India got its independence from Britain.
• We learn industry terminology that we hadn’t heard of just two hours ago. Programmers often have to complete a chain of small, unrelated tasks before they can do their actual work. This is called yak shaving. It comes from an episode of The Ren & Stimpy Show where the character originally wants to wax a floor (the actual work) but ends up having to need floor wax, which needs milk from a yak, which requires shaving the yak.
• We often learn very specific manufacturing processes entirely. So sand is heated at over 1,500°C until it’s basically liquid, then it’s poured onto a large bath of molten tin (floating on it), and as things cool down, you have a flat sheet of glass. Did you ever consider that glass could be made this way? Molten sand on molten tin? That’s bizarre.
• Many writers know more oddball consumer-product comparisons than is healthy for them. A manual hand-crank flashlight costs $10 and lasts for years without batteries, making it far more useful in a power outage than a $25 smart LED lantern that relies on dead or corroded rechargeable internal batteries when you need it most.
• And we have a massive library of things we can’t casually mention at dinner without sounding slightly unhinged. Like the Bird Buddy. It’s a bird feeder. With a motion-activated HD camera. And AI that identifies which species of bird just landed on your porch. And solar-powered. And costs $200. I brought it up during a dinner with some friends. The rest of the dinner was silent.

And there’s so much more! Niche regulations, obscure historical events, and strangely specific pieces of trivia about European cruise packages. How to store, reconstitute, aliquot, and use small vials of research compounds and why subcutaneous injections work so well for short-half-life ones vs. intramuscular. A head full of random knowledge!

What makes this worse is that when you’re an actually good writer, you don’t stop when you have done the bare minimum. How does Bluetooth work? That leads you to learn about radio frequencies, signal interference, antenna design, and something completely unrelated you found on some forum.

Yes, you should not go so deep if there’s no reason for it. But sometimes, you feel that more research is required for you to write really well. The Bluetooth example is a dumbed-down version. In most topics I have to research, there are a lot of pathways and relations to explore to create the perfect guide or article. Over time, you just find what works best for you. How deep you need to go, how much research a topic needs, how much time should be spent on figuring things out, what sources to follow and which ones to ignore, etc.

Talking of sources.

Sometimes, the best source of information is a peer-reviewed research paper with a couple dozen scientists’ names on it from the best universities in the world. At other times, the best source of information is a 15-year-old comment by a [deleted] Reddit user.

Is a Writer a Multi-Domain Expert?

You don’t necessarily become an expert in every subject. But you learn how to understand unfamiliar subjects quickly. This is a striking quality, actually.

You get better at spotting useful information. You learn which terminology matters and which is just industry noise. Over time, that creates a bizarre but surprisingly broad knowledge base. Adaptability is one of the most underrated writing skills. You need to switch contexts without carrying yesterday’s assumptions into today’s assignment. You have to ask basic questions without feeling stupid. You have to understand enough to explain the subject to someone else. Then you have to do it again tomorrow with an entirely different subject!

It’s arguable just how effective the trade of professional writing is in making someone an expert in general knowledge or game shows vis-à-vis, say, a domain-limited researcher. So I won’t claim that we’re all super experts. Most of the information we have is tucked away in our subconscious, weaving dreams or coming up randomly during dinners.