Performing Research
When you’re given a topic or question to write about, the immediate instinct is often just to start reading secondary sources right away. You want to canvas the largest number of opinions and get the most information, right?
When you’re given a topic or question to write about, the immediate instinct is often just to start reading secondary sources right away. You want to canvas the largest number of opinions and get the most information, right?
Perfectly understandable, but actually no, not quite right. Imagine if your topic is, “Consider the role of art in the creation of a nation.” If you just starting reading when faced with that, you could find yourself reading about art from the earliest civilisations to the present day, about rulers who have been patrons of the arts, about the way political parties have used art to get their messages across, about political parties that have banned art because it doesn’t represent their message, about styles of folk art, and on and on.
Rather than starting your research by reading everything you can find, start by taking a little while to think about what you think about the topic or question. What do you think is important? If you’re asked to analyse, consider, explain, or argue a side, what do you believe about the topic at hand? Write that down briefly.
Now that you have some idea of what you think about your topic, research becomes much easier. You don’t have to read everything in the world! You can begin your research by reading items related to your ideas. As you read, your ideas might change, but starting small and going big will save you more time than starting big and going small.
In addition, this examination of your own thought will give you a certain sense of stability. You’re not at a total loss: you do have an idea! A sense of stability is calming and reassuring, and a calm, reassured researcher is more likely to be successful than a scared, uncertain one.
The world of research is now largely computer-based. While that means there are many potentially useful websites (which I’ll talk about in a moment), I would advise you to resist your instinct to just go online and start reading. Librarians are the great unsung heroes and heroines of research. Make an appointment with one – or even just go down to the library and find one – and tell them your topic. They will help you find databases, subject guides, online document collections, and whatever else you can access to help your research (in fact, many university and college libraries offer in-person sessions that introduce students to online resources and show how to use them most effectively. Consider booking one).
As your proceed to use databases, etc., bear in mind that there will be useful sources that won’t come up if you type in the obvious keywords for your topic. In the case above, “art” and “nation-building” and combinations of those will produce sources, but it’s worth thinking about related words and topics that might turn up more. For example, “political art” “politics” “propaganda” and “government” might all lead to very good sources.
Remember that physical resources still exist, and they’re still very useful! Not everything has been digitized, so don’t just look for digital resources. Consult your library’s catalogue and see what print resources might be useful. Often a good wander in the relevant area of the stacks yields unsuspected riches.
The internet is probably the best thing to happen to research since the invention of the book. But it’s also the worst. Just as it’s filled with reliable, sensible people offering knowledge you couldn’t find anywhere else, it’s filled with ill-informed, biased, and sometimes downright crazy people offering fake knowledge and opinion dressed up as truth.
When it comes to using websites as sources, here are some useful guidelines:
A few remarks about using AI: AI is a good servant, but a bad manager. While using it is a good idea (in fact, it’s necessary, since databases, subject guides, etc., are forms of AI), it’s not a good idea to let it do the work for you. AI doesn’t have analytical skills, so it can’t tell a bad source from a good one, or a lie from a truth. It can gather information for you, but you must be the one who evaluates that information. Remember to evaluate anything you gather using any digital source.
When I was at university, this is how I recorded and organised research: I took out a sheet of lined paper, and as I came across useful quotations or information in the sources I read, I wrote that down on the sheet, with the author’s name at the end of the individual quotation or bit of data. Then, when I sat down to write and came to a point where I knew I had a useful quote or bit of knowledge, I went through the sheet of paper (or sheets, if there was more than one) until I found what I wanted. Then I inserted it.
It wasn’t until I was a post-graduate student that I learned that there is a much more effective and less time-consuming way of recording my research. It’s called the Index Card Method. Unsurprisingly, it involves using index cards (you may also know these as record cards).
In the index card method, you buy a packet of index cards – in my experience, medium-size ones are best. As it happens, you can also use the computer – but “The Index Cardo r Computer Method” somehow doesn’t sound quite as good.
If you are using index cards, simply take a couple of cards and write on the top of each a topic you know you’ll be covering in your essay: say, “Hurricanes” and “Levees.”
As you proceed through your reading, write down each quotation (and, if you want, piece of information) related to the topics on the appropriate card. After the quotation, write the name of its author (if you have more than one source by the same author, indicate the source as well as the name). Each time you have a new topic, add a card. Do the same for subtopics.
You might like to write the quotations in two or more colours, so you can easily see where one stops and another begins:
On a separate sheet of paper, keep a bibliography. Each time you use a source, immediately write all the necessary publication information for that source on your sheet of paper. That way, if you use a quotation or piece of information, you don’t have to go searching for the source information: you already have it right there (the other option is to record the publication information for each source on its own index card, but I find a sheet of paper makes it less likely that you’ll lose any sources).
Remember, if you record all the publication information correctly formatted at this point, you won’t have the irritation of having to format it later, when you’re tired from writing your essay.
If you do this on the computer, simply write out the topics in bold capitals and put the relevant quotations underneath. That way, you’ll have a running document you can scroll through. If you also record your bibliography on the computer, you can just cut and paste the relevant entries at the end of your final essay draft.
When you’re done with your research, put the cards in alphabetical order. As you proceed through your essay (or essay plan) and need quotations on a given topic, simply locate the card for that topic and find a good quotation.
This method involves a little more work up front, but it saves time in the long run. Because your quotations are on cards organised by topic, you simply look for the card with the topic at its head, then use that. Because the cards are alphabetised, you can find the topics easily.
The method also has some clear advantages. For one, I have found that for some reason it means you remember your evidence more clearly (“Oh, wait! I have something on a card that relates to that”). For another, there is a feeling that you are in control of the topic. After all, you have all your knowledge neatly organised on notecards! Because this reduces anxiety and confusion, it also reduces time (since you waste less of it on anxiety and confusion). Finally, you can also save all the cards and use them to review at exam time.
If you don’t want to buy index cards and don’t want to use your computer, simply take some sheets of paper and rip them into quarters. These are roughly the same size as index cards.
If a quotation relates to more than one of your topics, write it on one card and then simply write “See also TOPIC OF OTHER CARD, QUOTATION NUMBER” on the other relevant card(s). This will save you time.
There’s nothing wrong with starting your research without an idea or opinion. You may find that you need research to have something to hang onto as you try to formulate your thoughts. That’s fine. You should try, though, to think as you research, considering what ideas the research is bringing up in your mind (for more on this, see the handout on Your Own Reasoning and Analysis).
One of the ongoing questions in essay citation is whether it makes more sense to insert quotations and information into an essay, then go back and cite page numbers and create Works Cited entries when you’ve finished, or to insert quotations and information, stop to cite correctly, and then continue with the essay. The first way may help to keep you in the flow of your essay; the second reduces the tedium of having to go back and put in numbers, and the risk that you’ll forget to include in the Works Cited something you used in the essay.
I don’t have the answer to this question. You will find out which way works better for you, and it may not be the same way for every essay. I can tell you, though, that cruel experience has taught me to create my Works Cited as I write my essay. That ensures that I don’t forget to include a source I’ve used.
The sentence a writer is most likely to leave out is the “so what?” sentence. This is because a writer knows the answer to that question: it’s his essay. Remember to read like your reader, not like the writer, to spot absences.