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    Research Your Subject: Write for Success, #3
    Research Your Subject: Write for Success, #3
    Research Your Subject: Write for Success, #3
    Ebook153 pages1 hour

    Research Your Subject: Write for Success, #3

    By Joan Bouza Koster

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    About this ebook

    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.

     

    "Rafts and rafts of useful online tools and book industry information links." 5* Amazon reviewer

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTidal Waters Press
    Release dateAug 31, 2024
    ISBN9781959318040
    Research Your Subject: Write for Success, #3
    Author

    Joan Bouza Koster

    Joan Bouza Koster is an award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction works in the fields of ethnography, education, anti-racism, and the arts. She holds a doctorate from Binghamton University and has published two textbooks on teaching the arts to young children: Growing Artists and Bringing Art into the Elementary Classroom.  Her dissertation on Addressing Racism through Children’s Literature was named the most distinguished dissertation in 2005. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies, and have received awards from Women on Writing, Stone Thread Publishing, Tryst Literary Magazine, and Winning Writers. Her first historical fiction novel longlisted for the Mslexia Award. Under the pen name, Zara West, she has published the award-winning romantic thriller series The Skin Quartet. She is currently in the process of writing a historical fiction series about nineteenth-century women who never should have been forgotten. Joan Bouza Koster blogs at JoanKoster.com, WomenWordsWisdom.com, AmericanCivilWarVoice.org, and ZaraWest.me and has taught numerous online writing courses. Find her current teaching schedule on her website.

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      Book preview

      Research Your Subject - Joan Bouza Koster

      Dedication

      This book is dedicated to librarians everywhere. Without them, researchers would be lost.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Chapter 1: Where Do I Start?

      Chapter 2: How Do I Record It?

      Chapter 3: How Do I Deal With Data?

      Chapter 4: Where Do I Search?

      Chapter 5: How Do I Search?

      Chapter 6: Should I Trust This?

      Chapter 7: Can I Use This?

      Chapter 8: Is It Legal?

      Resources

      Supplements

      About the Author

      Introduction

      Supposing is good. Finding out is better.

      Mark Twain

      Autobiography of Mark Twain, (2015), Griffin & Smith, eds., vol 3, p. 99

      EVERYTHING WE WRITE comes from somewhere. The meanings of the words and ideas that we use convey information we have selected and recreated from our own knowledge or that of others.

      However, it is foolish, and perhaps dangerous, to rely on only what we know off the top of our heads or from remembering what we heard or read. All writers should support what they write with organized, well-vetted research if they want others to believe what they have written, whether it is an academic paper or a wildly creative novel.

      Research Your Subject helps you do just that.

      Doing research is much like excavating an archeological site searching for traces of a buried civilization; you must be focused, persistent, and willing to dig deep.

      In this guidebook, using the analogy of archeology, we will examine how to do this. You will learn:

      How to plan your research.

      How to find accurate and reliable sources.

      What resources are available.

      What tools and methods will make the research process quicker and easier.

      Ways to reduce the chance of liability and plagiarism charges.

      Why This Book?

      I FIND DOING RESEARCH exhilarating but amazingly time-consuming. I bet you do, too. The trick is to dig deep enough—but not so deep that no time is left for writing.

      Having a brilliant fact or event in an essay, blog post, article, or novel can bring your writing to life. However, it is also easy to get so buried in data that it weighs you down.

      Has that ever happened to you? It sure has happened to me. Stored away, I have a lifetime of boxes and boxes of research notes, maps, copies, and papers on a wide range of topics that have never appeared in any of my writings. But along the way, I’ve also gathered tricks and systems that make the process more focused, less time-consuming, and even fun.

      Everything in this book is bolstered by decades of my own personal research experiences. As a doctoral student and ethnographer, I was trained in and carried out original quantitative and qualitative academic research. As an educator, I have taught research techniques to thousands of students. As a writer of non-fiction, I have published research-based textbooks, academic papers, and magazine and historical blog articles.

      But I am not only an academic; I am also a novelist. In the last decade, I have written numerous novels and short stories, and taught workshops to writers on how to collect and organize the research needed to write a top-level work of fiction.

      Fiction writers need to research as much as any non-fiction writer. From weather to culture to location there is no end to the tiny details required to make fiction seem real.

      Rarely do academic researchers and fiction writers come together. However, in terms of carrying out research there are more similarities than differences between the two. In this book, I have melded them, as I have my writing career, together.

      So, whether you write nonfiction or fiction, this guide is for you.

      Who Is This Book For?

      ALL WRITERS NEED TO do research. Essays, articles, blog posts, how-to guides, academic papers, stories, novels, memoirs, and even poetry may all require some background understanding or factual material. You might need to discover the proper spelling of a city, find a quote, learn the details of an obscure battle, or analyze the thinking of a long dead philosopher.

      Note: Throughout the text, I will refer for simplicity to the different types of writing you might be doing as your writing project.

      But no matter how much or how little research your work requires, the process is basically the same with the same goal: use the best sources and be as accurate as possible.

      How to Use this Book

      THIS GUIDE PROVIDES a simple step-by-step approach to planning, finding, and using sources. Though it covers most of your research needs if you’re writing in a popular genre, if you are carrying out original research studies for scientific or academic purposes, you should also consult the in-depth resources listed in the Reference section.

      For those in a hurry or who after reading this book need to find summary information quickly, I have provided Research Tips at key points in the text and a Research Checklist at the end of every chapter.

      For those who are interested in seeing how the advice in this book works, I have also included What I Do features throughout to provide actual examples of writer-research in action.

      Now, let’s get started.

      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 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.

      Initial research is done long before starting to write.

      Grounding research is the collection and organization of materials for the specific writing project before drafting.

      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 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 basic background research before you outline and draft your writing project. Consider it an immersing baptism into your topic. (See Chapters 4 and 5 for effective ways to search out information.)

      Grounding Research

      THE PURPOSE OF THIS stage

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