Post: #1

Any journalists or otherwise have recommendations?

As a writer, I'd say this is my weakest link, and I'd like to correct that. I'm always impressed by non-fiction authors who write with a journalistic eye for research.

I found one on Amazon that looks interesting called "The Craft of Research."

I'm hoping to find a widely-upheld classic in the writing field. That's why I made a post out of the question instead of just digging up whatever I could find.

Looking forward to whatever the wisdom of the forum churns up.

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Rudyard Kipling

Post: #2

You could look at books aimed at Ph.D students research methodology.

Post: #3

Research is a pretty broad topic, what specific branch of research are you talking about?

Post: #4

I often find myself researching odd topics.

A great starting point is Google BOOKS. They have actually scanned every single book ever published. And made the contents totally searchable.

https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=c...NG+AWESOME

Just type in some words that you want to research and see what comes up.

Then as you scroll through the books (and articles) that are suggested - you can click on any that look promising.

Once you do that - you can either check out the table of contents, or run another search for any phrase you want in that particular book.

Also - remember to use quotation marks if you are looking to be specific and want to cut out a lot of false hits.

I make this my starting point when researching a topic.

Once I have a few books that look interesting - I go over to Amazon to see how expensive they are, and to see what the reviewers on amazon think about them.

Using this strategy - I am now confident that I will never miss a useful book in an area that I am interested in researching.

You can do the same thing (if you want to get more academic) by using Google SCHOLAR to research academic papers.

http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=e...5&as_sdtp=

I don't use Google scholar much for two reasons. Firstly - Google books will often bring up academic papers that are of interest.

And secondly - I often find references to academic papers in the footnotes (or bibliography) of books I am reading. And if it is an area I want to explore more - I will just type the exact title of the academic paper into Google, and a lot of the time you will find an online copy for free in the first result on the page.

At this point your search will end in one of three ways.

You will either find a free pdf online (this happens about 50% of the time).

Or you will find a (often pricey) book which collects that academic paper along with a few others. Which you may then want to buy on amazon.

Or you will find the academic paper locked behind some kind of paywall. This can by pricey (paying 30 bucks for a 30 page pdf etc). But - if you have access to a university library - you should be able to access (for free) these papers by using the log in of the library.

At least here in the UK - that is something you can do.

------------------

The internet has made it so much easier to research anything you want. No need to over complicate things. Just jump in and make use of what Google is offering for free. The important thing is to be diligent in chasing up leads. Even if the thing you track down is of no use. It will often lead you to your next lead which will be perfect for whatever topic it is you are researching.

Post: #5

That was a great post, Plato. Gets a rep from me.

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Rudyard Kipling

Post: #6

I don't have a book for you BB, but I will second the google recommendation. I would even say that google is underrated. If you know what to look for and how to use it you can find just about anything. Plato covered how to use it pretty well. I feel like I have learned more from google over the course of my lifetime than from any other source.

Last semester I had to write my senior thesis on Russia/Crimea/NATO expansion. I literally knew nothing about it, or the class for that matter.

I had about 3 days to write the fucker, and I spent the first day just researching material before I even started trying to write anything.

I took to google like a mad man. I change up my search terms a lot, and never venture far from the first page of the results.

The key is to find one quality article, and then look at any other sources mentioned in the text or in the actual source list.

I don't remember the exact article I was reading, but it linked to what it claimed was, "One of the most controversial pieces written on the subject." Which led me to this Foriegn Affairs Journal

I credit that article for me acing my thesis.

That brings me to my next point. Industry specific journals like the one I listed above can be your best friend. You just have to find the ones that are worth a shit.

Usually you only get access to a few articles, but that is usually enough in my experience.

Another thing you can do is search authors if you find one who is worth a shit. From the article in my example above I can search John Mearsheimer, and find what his students had to say about him.

When I find out that students are saying, "His ego is bigger than anything else and he prides himself on being a real jerk. Plus he is a misogynist and has very offensive views on the subject" I know he is probably an alright guy.

You can also figure out which authors collaborate together, which gives you even more material.

I am assuming that you are looking to research more for writing copy than academic writing, but hopefully it helps.

Research is really just cyber-stalking in my opinion.

Post: #7

GM makes a good point.

It is about finding one or two good sources. And then making extensive use of the bibliography/footnotes in that book (or paper).

That is the key to most of my best discoveries. Whenever I read a book - I am always jotting down books/papers to check out on google/amazon later on.

Post: #8

(01-08-2015 11:55 PM)Plato Wrote:  GM makes a good point.

It is about finding one or two good sources. And then making extensive use of the bibliography/footnotes in that book (or paper).

That is the key to most of my best discoveries. Whenever I read a book - I am always jotting down books/papers to check out on google/amazon later on.

This is a common method, but it's also painfully inefficient. There is also another way of streamlining this process using google scholar or whatever engine/database you are using.

We call those articles stem articles. They are articles that put forth a new theory or stream of research and a bunch of people use the same theory in different contexts or build on it, or use different methods to answers similar questions put forth.

When you come across those stem articles, search and find it in google scholar. What you want to do now is click on the "cited by" field under the article. Of course this will take you to all the papers or books that cited the article which is pretty simple in of it itself.

Now...this is where you can streamline the process:

When you click on the cited by link, under the search bar there will be a "search within these articles" checkbox. Click on that and now you can search within those articles that cited the stem article for specific keywords.

Of course, just because something gets cited doesn't mean it's particularly relevant to what you are looking for. Now you have the option of further narrowing down your search fields by using more keywords within those articles. If you get specific enough, even if there are a tonne of cited articles, it will narrow your search down to just a few articles.

Rinse and repeat. Any article you find that is very relevant to what you are looking for just do the same process above and catalog the articles. This gets into the process of making annotated bibliographies which I think is probably out of the scope of this thread.

-------

Like I said before BB, if you be a bit more specific I can help you better. Research is a broad subject. Also, I don't know exactly what you do but you probably don't need to go into the academic realm of research.