Research Your Subject and Validate Your Writing

No matter what your subject is or the type of writing you do…

You can always do it better.

Book 3: Research Your Subject and Validate Your Writing

How often have we all seen:

The historical novel that gets bad reviews for using an invention that didn’t yet exist
The YA novel that doesn’t ring true to modern-day teenagers
The nonfiction book that gets pulled for citing questionable “facts”
The memoir that causes a scandal for not presenting events as they happened

All of these can be avoided with proper research. An important part of writing every kind of book, essay, blog post, or article is presenting things either as they are or as they feasibly could be. That’s where research comes in. But it doesn’t have to be difficult or take much time away from your writing. Tested over the author’s decades-long career as an author and educator, these research methods are easy to learn, customizable for your needs, and designed to get results without wasting time. Research Your Subject: And Validate Your Writing.

What reviewers are saying…

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Excerpt

Chapter 1 Where Do I Start?

“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.”

Zora Neale Hurston

Dust Tracks on the Road, (1942), p. 143

Writers are much like archeologists. Like archeologists searching for clues to the past, we are always looking for bits of information to enhance and add to our understanding of our area of study.

We also face similar problems. Archeologists excavate, gather what they find, and conduct their analysis. If they lack a piece of data, they must mount another expedition or else guess at the meaning of what they found.

Similarly, in the midst of writing an essay, article, blog post, or novel, missing pieces of information can turn up. But instead of having to mount an expensive expedition or guess, a writer can quickly jump out on the web, do a search, and use the first source that pops up.

But can we trust that source?

In this chapter, we will look at how to plan our approach to research so that we turn up the best information for our work. Planning a research strategy, just like planning an archeological excavation, will keep us from searching wildly at the last minute and coming up with a student paper or blog full of misinformation as our only source.

Getting Started

Part of the problem of being writer-researchers—for that is what we are—is allowing sufficient time to obtain the information required for our current work.

To solve this problem, I have found that there are basically three levels of research that a writer requires.

1. Initial research is done long before starting to write.
2. Grounding research is the collection and organization of materials for the specific writing project before drafting.
3. Fill-in research is completed during the revision process to deepen and complete missing information such as dates, fashion trends, and location details.

Initial Research Period

The goal of initial research is to become seeped in your topic. If you are already an expert in your field, take time to gather your favorite resources, and spend time rereading and reviewing them.

During this stage, read widely. Do not limit yourself to a few well-known books or articles. Check out journals, newspapers, letters, and websites. As we will see in Chapter 6, collecting information from varied types of sources makes writing richer and more reliable.

As you read, note other references you want to consult. Search bibliographies and footnotes for sources to check out. Obtain library cards at all the libraries you can from local to regional to national. Make friends with librarians and have them help you locate materials you might have missed. Chapter 5 suggests for places to carry out research.

The idea is to gain a wide knowledge of what potential sources are out there and to bring yourself up-to-date on the topic. Do not worry at this stage about validating your sources, but do sort them into what looks most useful and informative for your work.

Also decide how you will record the information you discover. See Chapter 2 for a wealth of physical and digital data storage methods.

• Research Tip: Complete background research before you outline and draft your writing project. Consider it an immersing baptism into your topic. (see Chapter 4 and 5 for effective ways to search out information)

Grounding Research

The purpose of this stage is to isolate the particular facts you need for your writing project. Take careful notes and accurately record references and links to websites. Being able to consult your research quickly will make the writing process go more smoothly.

During this stage, do the following:

• Group materials into categories most useful to the writing project.
• Take notes and record references for future use and protection from potential liability. (see Chapter 8)

• Research Tip. Developing a list of categories and keywords related to your writing project will prove helpful not only when researching, but later in categorizing or marketing your finished work. See below for suggested ways to develop a project-based keyword list.

Fill-in Research

Now we are back to the opening scenario. No matter how organized and well-researched we are, as we write, something will show up we don’t know as we draft. But, because of our extensive background research, we do not have to wander the web or library stacks. We know exactly where and how to look for a missing fact.

But don’t dash off to search it out at that moment. In order to avoid losing your train of thought, mark that spot and come back during the revision process to complete it.

• Research Tip: Use your word processor’s highlighter tool to mark fill-in locations in your draft. This makes the spot easy to pinpoint and to complete in the revision process. For more on using the highlighter tool when drafting see my Write for Success book Fast Drafting Your Manuscript and Get It Done  or my Fiction University article “How the Highlighter Tool Can Help You Write Faster.”

Keywords

Effective searching starts by developing a list of categories or keywords to describe your main topic(s).

Using the right keywords will make a tremendous difference when searching library catalogs, databases, and the Internet. To create a keyword list for your research, list all the words that describe the main subjects you will cover. Add close variants of these words. Next move onto subheadings and do the same.

Here is a simple example:

Main topic: Sheep raising Variations: raising sheep, sheep farms, sheep farming, sheep management, keeping sheep, producing wool, care of sheep flocks, sheep husbandry, and so on.

It can also be helpful to create a list of information or topics you are not interested in.

Finding Keywords

Subject-related words can be found in a number of ways.

• BISAC categories used by the book industry.
• Keyword Tool and Soovle.
• Moby Thesaurus.
• Answer the Public. Typing in your subject will produce a visual map of all the questions on that topic being searched for on the web.

Once you have a useable set of keywords, you can begin your search.

How Much Research Should I Do?

The easy answer is just enough. But that is often hard to determine. The amount of research required depends on the breadth of your topic and the length of your work. But it also depends on the specificity your work demands. A brief, thousand-word article on the nesting habits of snowy owls may require more research than a thousand-page fantasy novel series set in a world unlike our own.

Decide ahead of time on how precise your information must be. For example, in the work you are writing, do you require:

• specific facts related to your topic or would a general feel for the topic be sufficient?
• precise numerical data such as an exact date or would a range, percentage, or statistical summary work?
• an eyewitness account, an interview, an author’s exact wording, or would an understanding of the person’s opinion and thought be enough?

When in doubt, collect more data than you think you will require. You might discover a place for that extra fact or detail in your current work or find it useful in a future one.