Researching Your Subject

This lesson is about the references and materials available to you to properly write about your subject.

Know Your Subject; or At Least Become an Excellent Researcher

Before you begin writing your work, you must know your subject very well or you must master the art of research. In general, nonfiction writers become experts in researching their subject matter because if you are going to write for payment, you will invariably write on topics outside of your knowledge base or comfort zone. So, get ready to learn how to research and prepare to spend time practicing before you ever take on an assignment from an editor.

One of the best ways you can prepare yourself is to set your mind in the right frame of thought. As a nonfiction writer, you cannot afford to think of researching your subject as boring or burdensome. You will become a better researcher and a better writer if you think of researching your subject matter as an adventure. I personally think of it as an effort similar to finding out who in my circle of contacts can connect me to the President of the United States.

It is well known that any citizen of the United States is no more than six levels from the President within his or her circle of influence. This means that there are no more than six people between anyone in the U.S. and their President. So, if you wanted to talk to the President, you would need to find out WHO in your world knows someone, who knows someone, who knows someone, who knows someone, who knows the President. This may take you a few days or weeks or months, but the statisticians argue that it is possible.

Just as you would pursue the President if you had a burning desire to talk with him, you must be willing to put that type of effort into the research of your subject matter. You would not give up your quest after a day or two or even after a few phone calls. In the same manner, you must not give up in your research efforts if you hit a couple of blank spaces or dead ends. Along the way, you will learn a good deal about your subject of which you previously had no clue.

You may find yourself off on what I call pig trails, related topics of interest. If you are not on assignment or if your editor gives you the luxury of choosing the details of your subject material, then you will find yourself pursuing some of the related topics of interest. If you do not have this latitude, then drop the pig trails and move on to material which directly supports your assignment.

The More Commonplace Your Source, the Less Valuable the Research

In today's marketplace, the professional nonfiction writer must be attuned to what is valuable and what is not in terms of research sources. The Internet is an extremely commonplace source of information for most people. However, for the professional nonfiction writer, the Internet is more commonly used as a quick reference, rather than as a source, to verify certain assertions. For example, I referenced a line from Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here album. When I first wrote that passage, I could not remember if the line was from The Wall or another album. Rather than digging out my CD collection and getting side tracked from my work by submerging myself into my own youthful and esoteric collection of music, I quickly found my answer by Googling "Pink Floyd" and searching from there.

This was helpful to me as a writer, but somewhat insignificant as a reference for this course because it was merely fact checking. Although fact checking is important to good nonfiction writing, the majority of your pre-writing research will have to do with significant information or facts on which your material will be based.

For this purpose, the less commonplace your source of information, the more significant it will likely impact your content. If your source is not so commonplace, then it often carries a heavier impact on your reading, assuming, of course, that the source is credentialed and well respected in their related industry. The more complex and less commonplace sources of research material will be found in your city or university library. ]]>