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[RokofAges75]

What are some sites you use to research for your stories?  I thought this would be a good place to post links that may be helpful to a lot of people.

Here are some ones I use.  I broke them down by category.

General Information:
Wikipedia - http://www.wikipedia.org
HowStuffWorks - http://www.howstuffworks.com/
EHow - http://www.ehow.com/

Geography/Settings:
GoogleEarth - http://earth.google.com/ (must install)
City-Data.com - http://www.city-data.com/

Travel:
GoogleMaps - http://maps.google.com/
MapQuest - http://www.mapquest.com
Expedia - http://www.expedia.com
Priceline - http://www.priceline.com
and many others!  I use these sites to look up driving directions and times, airport information and airline itineraries, etc. when I want to know how long it would take to get between two places, and that sort of thing.

Names:
BabyNames.com - http://www.babynames.com
Popular Baby Names by Decade - http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/ (good for historical fics)
BehindtheName. com - http://www.behindthename.com/ (first names) or http://surnames.behindthename.com/ (last names)

Medicine:
EMedicine - http://emedicine.medscape.com/ (good for in-depth information, written in medical lingo)
EMedicine Health - http://www.emedicinehealth.com/ (more basic info, easier to understand)
MedlinePlus - http://medlineplus.gov/
Mayo Clinic - http://www.mayoclinic.com/
If you want less technical, more personal information about dealing with a certain condition, try searching for support forums or blogs - there you will find personal accounts from people who have been there, which gives you the emotional angle you need to write realistically about it.

If you have some favorite links you find yourself using a lot to research, post them here!  They may come in handy for someone else!

[Rose]

Oh....wikipedi a.

How many times has that site saved us Julie? lmao.

[RokofAges75]

LMAO I know.  Really, as long as you have Wikipedia and Google, you're good!  LOL

[Rose]

Yep, Google and Wikipedia, fanfiction lifesavers LOL. I heart them both.

[Carter-Orange]

I love Google!  I've also used Wikipedia for a couple of things too.

[RokofAges75]

Have you seen the commercials for Bing.com?  Microsoft's new answer to Google?  Well, I was skeptical, but I was researching tonight and found my way on there, and I have to say... their maps feature is freaking awesome!!  Blows GoogleEarth out of the water!  For some places (like the places that would show up well on GoogleEarth), you can do a bird's eye view, instead of just the satellite view, and see things in 3-D.  It's so cool!  Very nice for researching places!

[honey]

hahahaha. I saw Conan do something on the Tonight show a couple weeks ago with Bing.com and I actually thought of you at the time, wondering if Bing would pull you away from Google.

[RokofAges75]

LOL!  So far it hasn't for searching; I like the simplicity of Google.  But for the map thing, hell yeah!

[RokofAges75]

Bumping this thread with more links.  Most of these are for the seriously anal researchers (like me)!

Writing a "historical" fic and want to know what the weather was like that day in that place?  
Weather Underground:  http://www.wunderground.com/history/

How about what time the sun rose or set, or what phase the moon was in?
SunriseSunset:  http://www.sunrisesunset.com/predefined.asp

Wanna know what was on TV that night?
TV Tango: http://www.tvtango.com/listings/
(Usually only good for primetime TV on the big U.S. networks - NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, etc.)

How about the TRL Top Ten that day?
TRL Archive:  http://atrl.net/trlarchive/

Wanna know how much cab fare would be when traveling from one place to another in a certain city?
TaxiFareFinder:  http://www.taxifarefinder.com/

Writing a medical drama and need information on labs - what they test for, how the tests are performed, what the results should look like, etc.?
Lab Tests Online:  http://labtestsonline.org/

Writing a medical drama and need a visual to show you how a procedure is done?
Medical Videos:  http://www.medicalvideos.us/
(Watch out, there's some gross stuff on there - not for the faint-hearted!)

Writing a pregnancy?
Pregnancy Calendar:  http://www.justmommies.com/pregnancy_calendar.php

How about a baby?
Infant Development: http://www.americanpregnancy.org/firstyearoflife/firstyeardevelopment.html

Want to know how drunk your character is?
Blood Alcohol Calculator: http://bloodalcoholcalculator.org/

How about how much caffeine it will take to kill them?
Death By Caffeine: http://www.energyfiend.com/death-by-caffeine

Need to put something in code for a mystery or spy story?
Cipher Tools: http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/

Enjoy!