Hello, friends! Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Sonia Dogra, J Lenni Dorner, Pat Garcia, Sarah – The Faux Fountain Pen, and Meka James. To learn more about this amazingly supportive group and to see a list of participating blogs, click here.
I write a blog about outer space, which means I sometimes attract the ire of Flat Earthers, Moon Landing deniers, and other “free thinking” people. One especially self-righteous commenter once admonished me for believing all of NASA’s lies and then said the classic line: “Do your own research!” If I had been drinking tea at that moment, I would have spit my tea out laughing. Do my own research? That’s my whole shtick! That’s basically my mission statement on this blog. I’m a Sci-Fi writer, and I blog about my research.
So for today’s IWSG post, I’d like to share some tips and tricks to help any other writers who want to do their own research. Some of this may seem to be specific to researching science, but there are general principles that I think you can adapt to any kind of research you might need to do.
First of all, start by learning the vocabulary. Every field of study (scientific or otherwise) has its own unique jargon. When I first started doing my science research, someone told me (rather sternly) that just knowing a bunch of science jargon is not the same as actually understanding science. That’s certainly true; however, if you learn the jargon first, the rest of your research will be considerably easier. You’ll know what terms to search for on Google (or better yet, Google Scholar). You won’t have to stop so often during your research to look up words. And if the opportunity comes up, you’ll be able to ask more intelligent questions and have more productive conversations with people who actually work in whatever field you’re researching.
Next, if you end up reading more technical (i.e., more confusing) books, articles, research papers, etc., then I recommend reading the end first. Don’t worry about spoilers. Not when you’re doing research. So for example, whenever I read a scientific research paper, I’ll skip to the end and read the section titled “Conclusions” first (or sometimes that section is titled “Discussion”); then I’ll go back to the beginning and read the whole paper. I find it’s a lot easier to follow along, step by step, how a new discovery was made if I already understand, in some detail, what the discovery is.
And lastly, after you learn a new thing, I recommend trying to explain whatever you’ve learned in your own words. The act of putting something into your own words is a clever brain hack that will increase the odds of you retaining that new knowledge long term. This process can also help you identify gaps in your knowledge where you still need to do more research. One option: you could simply talk to a friend about whatever you’re researching. Or you can write a research diary. Or you could do what I do and blog about your research (although I recently started keeping a research diary as well, because if I don’t feel confident that I understand something, then I don’t want to spread my own misconceptions to others on the Internet).
All of that may sound like a lot of work. That’s because it is a lot of work. Doing your own research is a lot of work. I wish more people on the Internet understood that. However, if you’re willing and able to commit the time and energy to doing it right, doing your own research can do you a lot of good—especially if you’re a writer.
So if you’re a writer looking to dive into your own research, I hope something I’ve said here was helpful to you. And if you’re someone who’s been doing your own research for a while now, I’d love to hear about how your research process works in the comments below.
Planet Pailly 
Hello! I’m very inspired by your process. One of my historical wip requires some research but I haven’t approached it like this. Thanks for sharing. Happy IWSG Day!
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I’m glad you feel inspired! Research can be daunting. Best of luck with your historical WIP, and thanks for co-hosting!
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Thank you!
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Writing always involves a lot of research, no matter what you’re writing about. I’ve had to research the tiniest details, but it’s important to do!
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It really is. It’s so much easier for readers to suspend their disbelief when authors seem to know what they’re talking about.
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Regurgitating what you’ve learned is a good way to get it into your brain. You’ll understand it better, like the suggestion to read your own work out loud.
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Yeah, if I put in the work to explain a science fact in my own words, I feel like I have a real connection to that fact. It’s mine now, and my brain really will hold on to it better.
Reading your own work aloud is also a good trick. I do that all the time, sometimes with friends as an audience.
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On any topic, echo chambers can make you feel like you’re doing research when you’re actually not hearing from independent or multiple sources. I follow this blog: https://skeptoid.com/ They also post the transcript for those of us who like to read our words. The guy tackles fun topics and shares his research. As you say, the methods can apply to many fields.
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I feel like I’ve heard of Skeptoid before. Maybe you mentioned it to me before? I meant to start listening to that, but then I forgot about it. Time to fix that!
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You do research for science fiction? I’m in awe at your analytical approach. I also write science fiction, but my research consists exclusively of reading sci-fi. I always thought the point of writing sci-fi is to be able to invent all the future science to fit my imagination. It doesn’t have to be realistic. It just have to be embedded as a flavor in a good story. Look at Jessie Mihalik. Her space travel science is not feasible at all, ridiculous in fact, but her stories are exciting, her heroes brave and kind, and that made her a bestseller.
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Personally, I kind of treat science facts like writing prompts. I get a lot of great ideas from my research, stuff that I know I never would have thought of on my own.
I don’t think every science fiction writer needs to do research. As you said, there are plenty of great Sci-Fi stories that play fast and loose with scientific facts, and they’re still great stories. But I do believe that my own writing is better for me doing all this research. It is what works for me.
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Doing your own research is a lot of work, but can be gratifying if you’re sufficiently interested in the topic. I read research papers pretty much in the same way you do. And I particularly like trying to explain things in simple language. I’ve actually gown suspicious of anyone who can’t explain something without dense jargon.
That said, some caution is warranted. Keeping up with all the trends in a field is literally a full time job. Most of us don’t have the time and energy. And it’s very easy to fall into the trap of cherry picking the papers and experts that flatter our biases. Doing your own research right requires a lot of humility.
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Excellent points, especially about humility. I’ve had to give up a lot of preconceived notions, going all the way back to my former beliefs about UFOs. Sometimes that was hard for me.
I still don’t really have a good strategy to guard against my own biases. Not consistently. I try cast a wide net when looking for research papers to read. If I find a series of papers that try to refute each other, I’ll read at least one from both sides. But I’m sure there’s still a lot that I miss.
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I’m not sure myself. Looking for competing views is excellent. I also find just the act of trying to explain our understanding in a blog post invites scrutiny and criticism, which can expose many blind spots. Just knowing it’s coming makes me work harder to ensure I’m on firm ground. (I have a graveyard of blog posts I lost confidence in before hitting the Publish button.)
Speaking of inviting scrutiny and criticism, does anyone know what’s going on with this new WordPress dialog box under the comment box? I’m used to subscribing to the comments for a post, but it’s looking like we can only subscribe to all comments on the blog now.
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I don’t know. I saw that box for the first time today and closed it without really looking at the options. I wish WordPress would fix stuff that’s actually broken and stop changing stuff that was working fine.
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Good advice, James. I used to be a journalist and I agree with everything you’ve said.
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Thanks! My day job is in T.V. news. I work more on the technical side of things. I don’t do any actual news gathering. Still, I think that journalistic mindset has rubbed off on me a bit.
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James, your advice for writers could be applied to all areas of life. Everyone – and I do mean bar none – could do with knowing how to properly research and to evaluate sources. There’s an awful lot of opinion masquerading as fact out there, and I’m becoming weary as more people who I previously considered perfectly intelligent fall for the schtick.
@DebsDespatches posting today from Fiction Can Be Fun
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The “do your own research” crowd are pretty annoying, especially because on the surface, they’re right. People should do their own research. But research is hard, and in most cases, the people who claim they “do their own research” have absolutely no idea how research is done.
I think this is a little extra problematic for writers, because a lot of us actually do do our own research. So its important for us to have some sort of strategy to make sure we don’t fall into the same traps as others.
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You have some helpful tips here that I might be able to use. I do my own research too, especially when I write my science fiction stories and want to make the scientific phenomena as plausible as possible. But it comes hard for me because I’m not even an amateur scientist although I will read about science in my spare time. So I can always use tips like the ones you offer above. Thanks!
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Glad to help! I don’t have any science background either. I just really love science fiction, and my love for science fiction led me to a love for science.
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I never imagined you didn’t have any science background. You talk about the subject like a professional!
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Why, thank you! I’ve done some pretty deep dives in my research, and I double check anything I put into a blog post. It’s really important to me that I don’t spread any misinformation about science online.
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Well said. Research is a lot of work. And it’s something that can’t be avoided either. Best of all, is taking said research and using your own words/author’s voice to explain it. Thanks for the tips.
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Thank you! It is a really special feeling, being able to explain something in your own words. I feel like I have a real sense of ownership over the stuff I learn, once I get to that point.
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I absolutely love doing research. For writing, for business building, for consulting, for project management. I am a total research junkie. Learning is the most important skill I have.
I think your tips are very sound, the last I would advise adding would be whenever feesible test your learning with application. It is one thing to know how a person would sword fight from watching film and learning theory. It is quite another to actually fight with a sword.
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That is really great advice. My research is so focused on outer space that it’s very rare for me to test what I learn personally, so I don’t usually think about that as part of my process. But if you can test what you’re learning, absolutely do it!
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I can definitely see how that would be trickier!
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