What I found

Step Three is analyzing the acquired information, and is probably one of the most important steps in research as far as I am concerned. Being able to find information that is, in some way, related to your topic is still a fairly useless skill if you don't know how to deal with that information and sort through it to find out what is actually useful.

For example, it was clear to me pretty quickly that the books I got out of the library weren't really going to work for me. My first clue was in the publication dates of the books.None of them had been published in the past year. Most were over five years old. According the The Restaurant Broker's study on the lifespan on restaurants "up to 90 percent of independent establishments close during the first year, and the remaining restaurants will have an average five-year life span." (Source) While other things, like hotels, museums, etc have longer lifespans a lot can change in 1-5 years. I don't want to wonder, as I gather information, if that information is even still accurate.

That being said, what I really wanted, in terms of information, was what was contained within a travel guide. Which is what really drew me to the Fodor's website. Fodor's has all of the authority of the Fodor's Travel name and experience. It possesses all of the various information about Boston that is present in the guidebooks, broken up into the exact sane categories. But what it does have that the print books did not is immediacy. The information on the website can be updated almost instantly. And even better, because it is the internet, with just a couple of clicks I can go from reading an entry on a likely hotel to the website for the hotel to see what the price per night is, to see if they have rooms open during the time I'll need them, to see pictures of the rooms and public spaces. The website, then, is not only more current than the books, it also contains more information than the book, and is more flexible and interactive than the travel books. In more academic pursuits I might spend the time to find several more, similarly reliable, sources of information. But for a personal investigation, especially one this early in its progress, one solid, thorough source is what I'm looking for.