How To Do Research
Posted by Kushana Torumekia at 9/3/2008 6:37 PM and is filed under Papers; J. R. R. Tolkien; Homework; Art Bell Show; Coast to Coast AM; Carl Sagan 
Listen to this article
Now that the school year has started up again I wanted to go over how to do research.I know, you're looking around and noticing you're not in a classroom. You may not even be a student. However, the point of these guidelines is not 'how to get a good grade in school' it's 'how to inform yourself about any vital topic'. It is very easy go with some-things-you've-heard (or read online) or to go with some-things-a-person-you-respect said; even scholars are tempted to do this. ("At the conference the people who study that topic were saying ..." "Well, Professor August And Venerable said...")
These are more important in the age of online information. It used to be that most information had to be 1) accepted by a publisher (usually a high hurdle) 2) fact checked (by editorial staff or experts) 3) favorably reviewed (often by other experts) to make it on the buyer's list for a great number of independent bookstores and libraries. Once it arrived it 4) was looked over by the buyer, manager, or acquisitions librarian to see if it was what it advertised itself to be. Yes, publishers published rants, fluff, and nonsense. Yes, publishers, librarians, and bookstores varied widely in their standards or even specialized in non-mainstream material. Yet it was far less easy to get a book into print and far less easy to sell it directly to a niche audience (either through mail order, classified-style print ads, or infomercials.)
The internet has done many good things, it has provided a forum for information that no publisher in their right minds would print as a book:
http://www.typewritermuseum.org/
Imagine it in print: it isn't quite a price guide, a history, or a coffee-table book. With photos it would be very expensive and, as beautiful as it is, few people would be willing to buy it.
So, at any rate on to research:
1) Do I have access to the full range on informed opinions on this subject? Am I reading reasoned arguments for and against ideas about this subject based on a body of commonly agreed-upon facts? Are their superficial and detailed treatments of the topic — am I reading things both devoted to this subject and things that simply touch on it because it colors a different topic? Is a credible perspective cut out of the conversation, either deliberately or accidentally?
2) Do these people know what they are talking about? (Online this can sometimes be impossible to sort out unless, alas, you're already an expert.) Are they pointing back to raw technical information on the subject? Do they bring any special skills or training to their work? How much of this sort of thing have they done before, and to what reception? Do most of the people in the conversation agree on what they're starting from (a photograph, a transcript, a poem etc.)
3) Who's paying them? Why are they weighing in on this? For love (or at least interest)? Are they selling something or promoting something that will (or won't) benefit them, personally? Do they have ties (family, financial, employment) to anything with an interest (or opposition) to the topic? What are their stakes, if any, in trying to persuade you?
4) How old is the source? Is this the best current thinking on the topic that takes any recent changes or new discoveries in to account? Most teachers (or college professors) put limits on how far you can go back in time for good reason: even old subjects (what Shakespeare learned in school, how the T. Rex hunted, how the Bible was written) change with new information or new thinking.
5) Who's put them in print? Did they go through any kind of vetting, evaluation, or fact-checking? What do the reviewers-who-know-what-they're-talking-about say about their work? How does this write-up compare with similar ones: is it detailed? Accurate? Complete? Not some kind of ad?
One of my hobbies is occasionally listening to Coast to Coast AM. One of the things that fascinates me about it is how people who are not experts succeed in persuading people that they are: they present themselves as one, they sound confident, they answer questions easily, they seem to have thought the subject thought, they have details. Step back: Middle-Earth does not exist. (Flamecatcher: yes, I know J.R.R.Tolkien varied in interviews and his letters on whether Middle-Earth was intended as very distant historical fantasy; but see his remarks on art and Secondary Creation in his Letters and the Tolkien Reader.) Yet a devoted fan of the Lord of the Rings could answer, confidently and in great detail, questions about any aspect of Tolkien's creation. This does not make Middle-Earth a concrete fact or any more real. Many subjects on Coast to Coast AM are like that, or at least one could as a lot of pointed questions about them, yet I've seldom heard guests booed off the show as frauds. I'm lucky: it is easy for me to get in touch with a wide range of experts (often I just have to walk down the hall) to ask if one of the show's topics is or is not scientifically or historically plausible — and I've been carefully trained to ask all the questions I mentioned, above.
The internet is often like Coast to Coast Am writ large.
Be cautious, do your homework (especially if you aren't in school!), and read here for further questions to ask.
-Kushana, who urges you to stop looking at free, anonymous blogs for your information!
thank you for sharing...
Reply to this