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office and did a bit of research during her lunch break. She wanted to learn more about the causes
of adult-onset asthma and to investigate the treatments her doctor had prescribed. Her goal was to
learn whether less expensive medications, or perhaps even simple lifestyle changes, might improve
her condition.
Martha found some websites listing possible causes of asthma, and she noticed that one
possible cause is environmental irritants. Via a new search and some link-following, she found a list
of common environmental irritants that may cause respiratory disorders, and she printed it out so
that she could show it to her husband.
When she arrived home from work that evening, she went over the printed pages with her
husband, George, and they discussed which irritants might be present in their home. Martha and
George were unsure how to check whether their house contained the types of molds included on the
irritant list, so they turned on their home computer to investigate further. George sat at the keyboard
and Martha stood behind him, looking over his shoulder.
George wanted to re-find the website with the irritant list Martha had printed, hoping they
might be able to click through from that site to learn more details about household molds. Martha
tried to remember the URL for the site, but could not. Instead, she tried to re-create the original path
she used to find it, suggesting that George try typing “asthma causes” into a search engine. Pointing
at the screen, Martha told George that the fourth link looked familiar, but George decided instead
to click on the second link since its snippet description sounded similar to the text on the printed
page. The page did not match, so George went back to the results list, this time following Martha's
suggestion and finding the desired irritant list. On that page, George found a link describing molds
in more detail and clicked it. As he read about identifying household molds, he scrolled quickly
through the page, and Martha was unable to keep up with his reading speed. Frustrated, she left
George to continue searching on his own and called her sister, Beth, to discuss her diagnosis.
After speaking to Martha, Beth wanted to learn more about her sister's condition, so she
performed a Web search about common causes of adult-onset asthma. She copied and pasted the
links she found into an email, and she sent them to Martha. The next day, Martha checked her
email and found the list of links from Beth. Unfortunately, the links were to the sites listing common
household irritants, which Martha had already found; Beth had unknowingly duplicated Martha's
own research.
Martha also had an email from George, reminding her to ask her colleague, Jim, what mold-
inspection company he used on his home last year, since George's research from the night before
determined that they needed to hire a professional to clear their house of potential respiratory
irritants, and Martha recalled that Jim recently had his house checked for similar issues. Prompted
by the email, Martha stopped by Jim's office to ask him what firm he selected to inspect his home for
mold last year. Although Jim had invested a great deal of effort into researching the pros and cons
of different inspection companies, comparing the services, pricing, and reputation of several local
businesses, he did not explicitly save this content, and he could not easily share it with Martha.
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