7 How Do I Research to Write?

Felicia remembered the old days of wandering through the library stacks, searching for that one dusty old book that would contain the research answers she needed. Felicia had enjoyed research then. She had relished the big-game hunt, searching the narrow and dimly lit library corridors for the research prize that would satisfy her intellectual appetite while pleasing her employer and clients. Felicia still enjoyed research using nearly all online resources. Rarer were the projects that invited Felicia to call upon her library liaison to corral for her a stack of print books to satisfy her research needs. But the big-game prizes still occasionally showed up, whether online or at the bottom of a big book stack. And as long as they did, Felicia was in for the full ride.

Research

Research, not alcohol and lavish reviews, is the proper fuel for writers. Unless one is writing pure fantasy, some amount of research is likely to help or be necessary, even for a travel romance, space fiction, or historical novel. Some writing projects, like scholarly articles and technical bulletins, may be virtually all research based. Other projects, like informational web content or a book on spirituality or self-improvement, may require a solid balance of research and writing. That measurement can be one of the first things that a writer must consider when taking on a new project: how much research is necessary, appropriate, and helpful? The writer who misses that mark, and either lards with research citations a writing that should instead have been topical or treats with opinions and surmises a writing that should instead have included substantial research support, fails the project. Understand the goal and purpose of each writing project, so that you can make an appropriate judgment of its research needs.

Libraries

As the story at the beginning of this chapter illustrates, research can involve varying methods. The old-fashioned method involved travel to a library, looking through card catalogs, and walking up and down rows of shelving to find the exact volume. Medical offices, law offices, engineering firms, and other firms of any size even maintained their own physical libraries, where the professional could sit to peruse volumes pulled from the shelves. A writer might take advantage of an in-office library, frequent a main library, and visit other specialty libraries to research and write on those specialty subjects. Libraries remain important research resources. Some resources, especially older books with limited readership, are not online. Perusing library print collections can also help a writer understand the nature, breadth, depth, quality, and relationship of research sources, while leading to fortuitous discoveries. Print catalogs and digests can also help a writer locate materials that search phrases in a web browser would not. Libraries can also offer free use of print collections that would require an expensive database subscription online. Writers can also order print materials that are not available locally through inter-library loans. Value your nearby libraries as research resources. 

Librarians

Librarians may be able to offer you substantial research support. Librarians do more than catalog new books, check out materials to borrowers, and reshelve returned books. Many libraries employ skilled reference librarians, available to the public for research help. Librarians can be especially helpful in getting a writer pointed in the right research direction, for instance to the best digests, digest topics, and even to online databases searchable at the library or remotely from your office or home. Librarians can also help direct a writer to better resources than the writer is currently using. If you frequent a certain library with a helpful reference librarian, or if the employer for whom you work employs a librarian, you may find that you can develop a close enough working relationship with the librarian to have the librarian help you with the research itself. Nothing beats having a library liaison set aside a stack of relevant books for you or send you a list of relevant electronic links. Make a friend of a librarian. They can speed, improve, and ease your research.

Online

Today, writers tend to accomplish the bulk of their research through online resources. On many projects, a writer can do a creditable or better job of researching, using solely online resources. A search using your favorite web browser’s search engine may be enough to turn up the sources you need. The algorithms that web-browser search engines use, though, may prioritize popular websites, turning up helpful information but linked only to private-entity websites that interpret other original sources. You may not immediately reach the original source you might prefer or need to cite. The secondary sources that you reach may link to the original sources you want, but also may not. Writers seeking original studies, original works, and other scientific or scholarly sources generally access either free online general-research databases like JSTOR or Google Scholar, free specialty research databases like PubMed and Fastcase (available free to state bar members), or a subscription specialty research database like ScienceDirect or Westlaw. Once you determine your research needs and the authorities your writing assignment requires that you cite, ensure that you are using the right browser, search engine, or database to access that authority. 

Sources

As just suggested, the sources on which you rely for a writing project, especially the sources you cite as authoritative, generally depend on the type of writing and field in which you write. Skilled and experienced writers doing scholarly or technical research in a certain field know the authority that they must research, locate, and cite. Legal writing, for instance, typically requires that the writer cite the specific constitutional provision, statute, regulation, or case law supporting what the writing asserts. Citing a law firm’s website or even an article in a law practitioner journal might not suffice for authority. Medical writing may, for another instance, require citing medical studies published in one of the several National Institutes for Health online databases, which include PubMed, NIH RePORTER, and the National Library of Medicine, or better yet, in a leading medical journal like the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, or the Journal of the American Medical Association. Learn from a mentor or review similar writings published in your field, to get to know the sources you may cite as authoritative in your specialty writing field. 

Reliability

Your writing may alternatively require that you make your own general judgments about the reliability of the sources that your writing cites. You may not be writing in a scholarly or technical field, and your employer or client may not specify the preferred research sources. In that instance, you may benefit from following a general hierarchy of authority. For instance, prefer original over secondary or interpretive works. Don’t cite website commentary that quotes or summarizes a law, rule, or regulation, or even a book or article, if you can instead locate and cite the original law, rule, regulation, book, or article. For another example, prefer government sources over private sources, unless others routinely rely on and cite a private source that functions like a government clearinghouse. Don’t cite a law firm’s website for authority, when you can instead cite the original statute or regulation on which the firm’s website itself relies. For another example, prefer citing an article that appears in a scholarly journal over an article that appears in a magazine or on a private website. For yet another example, prefer citing an empirical study over a conjectural article. To strengthen your writing, routinely consider the reliability of the sources that you cite. 

Citation

When you find research material that you believe you may cite in the writing for which you are researching, ensure that you save the citation to the material along with whatever quote or other content that you excerpt. Don’t make yourself go hunting again for the citation of material that you’ve already researched once. Different writings follow different citation conventions. Learn the citation convention for the writings on which you work. Following the wrong citation conventions may get your writing rejected or cause a lot of extra work for you or your editors. Writings published in specific journals following the citation form of the writing standards manual that the journal’s editors have adopted. Writings published in law journals, for instance, generally follow The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. Writings published in medical journals, for another example, generally follow the AMA Manual of Style or the ICMJE Recommendations. The Chicago Manual of Style, MLA Handbook, and Associated Press Stylebook are leading writing standards manuals for general citation form, outside of specialty journals. But many writings follow simpler, non-standard conventions. The website for which you write web content, for instance, may only require that you electronically link words or phrases directly to your online source, without including any citation, for a cleaner, shorter, more-accessible, and frankly more-useful style. Learn and follow your writing’s citation conventions.

Plagiarism

Following citation conventions can ensure that you avoid plagiarism charges relating to your submitted and published writings. Plagiarism accusations, whether founded or not, can ruin a writer’s reputation and career. Citing your sources according to the conventions that your employer and clients, or the journals or others publishing your writing, require minimizes your chances of facing plagiarism allegations. Employers, clients, journals, and others regularly use applications that check for plagiarism, to minimize their own chances of facing a plagiarism scandal. Of course, avoid any temptation to plagiarize. But moreover, follow practices that minimize the chance of innocent mistakes that may lead to plagiarism accusations. Do not, for instance, copy and paste quoted material into your writing unless immediately placing it within quotation marks, double indenting it, or otherwise clearly marking it out as quoted, and immediately inserting the proper citation. Quoted material that you paste casually into your writing, without marking it out as such and adding the appropriate citation, but instead expecting to process it into a clear quote later, could end up remaining in your writing in a way that appears that you claim it as your own. Avoid any similar practice, such as close paraphrasing without citation credit, that could lead to plagiarism allegations. 

Use

How you use authority and citations can also affect the quality of your writing. As already indicated above, your writing’s form, type, and publisher may largely determine when you must cite authority and what authority you may cite. But within those parameters, you may have relatively broad discretion to cite more authority or less authority. A good rule to follow is to cite authority only when you need to do so to convince the reader of the reliability of what your writing asserts. Don’t cite authority simply to make your writing appear more technical or weighty, when your citations do not contribute to the usefulness of your article. Citing authority can either make a writing more useful or less useful. If a reader, for instance, is simply looking to gain an outline of a field from topical, descriptive website content, then citing abundant authority might distract, slow, and discourage the reader, who would then look for simpler web content. But if, instead, you are writing for a reader who needs to be able to take your assertions to the figurative bank, as of unquestioned authority, then your writing should cite abundant reliable authority. Don’t lard your writings with research just to impress. Instead, cite authority when the reader needs to know and rely on the authority. 

Reflection

What percentage of your writing requires that you research heavily and cite your research sources? Does all your writing require research? Is all your research online, or do you still travel to libraries? If you go to libraries, how is the library most helpful to you? Could you improve your research further by relying more on librarians than you currently do? What is your go-to web browser for online research? Does it serve you well, or should you try other browsers? Do you search frequently in free specialty databases like JSTOR or Google Scholar? If not, should you be doing so? Would a subscription to a paid specialty database like Westlaw or ScienceDirect speed and improve your research? What writing standards manual do you follow or should you be following for the writing you commonly do? Do you have that manual available to you, and if so do you occasionally access it to ensure the correct citation style? Do you consistently cite reliable sources, those that your readers would regard as authoritative? 

Key Points

• Sound research is a key aspect of much professional writing. 

• Libraries remain helpful resources, especially for older book material.

• Librarians may be able to offer substantial research support.

• Online research in free or subscription databases is a writing standard.

• Different writing fields require citing different authoritative sources.

• Make sound judgments of the reliability of the sources you cite.

• For citation form, follow the applicable writing standards manual.

• Avoid any deliberate or careless practice that could lead to plagiarism.

• Cite authority when readers expect and need citations, not to impress.

Read Chapter 8.