Trawl

"You found good sources in a minute when I'd been drowning in junk for an hour!" a young researcher said.

"Searching is a skill, not luck," Trawl said, miming hauling in a net. "I'm Trawl. I keep the search strategy — cast a wide net, then pull it tight." She listed it on her fingers. "Choose strong keywords — not your whole question. Know where to look. And when the first net comes back wrong, change it and cast again. You don't search by accident. You fish on purpose."

Scholar, the club's warm mentor, said, "Show them the two ways searching goes wrong."

Trawl demonstrated the too-wide net: she searched a single broad word and hauled back a million results, most useless. "Too wide — you'll never sort it." Then the too-narrow net: she searched a long, oddly-specific phrase and got nothing. "Too tight — the net came back empty." Then she got it right: two or three strong keywords, a good source to search in, and a net full of exactly-right things. "Wide enough to catch, tight enough to sort."

A young researcher squinted. "What do I do when I get nothing back?"

"You learn from it," Trawl said. "An empty net isn't a failure — it's telling you to change your words. Too many results? Add a word. Too few? Drop one or swap it for a simpler one. Every wrong search teaches you the right one. You just keep adjusting the net."

Scholar asked Trawl to teach the club before their projects. "Wonder gives them a sharp question," Scholar said, "but then they type the whole question into a box and drown. Will you teach them to fish?"

Trawl was thrilled. When she teaches, she gives one rule: "Turn your question into keywords — the two or three words that carry the meaning. Pick a good place to search, not just the first box you see. Look at what comes back. If it's wrong, change one word and cast again. Searching is a loop, not a single throw."

Vet, who was brilliant at judging sources but kept getting bad ones to judge, tried it. She turned "how do bees know which flowers to visit?" into the keywords bees flowers communication, searched a solid source, and pulled back a net of strong material. "I always blamed myself for finding junk," Vet said. "But I was just casting the wrong net. Better keywords, better catch — now I have good things to actually evaluate."