Tuesday, December 15, 2009

How To Research Effectively.

I remember when I wrote book reports in elementary school and even highschool. Research was either done in the school library our out of the World Book Encyclopedia! This was such fun because eventhough I never directly copied anything out of a resource book for my report there were plenty of select words to choose from and it actually took some time to write a report. You really had to learn something about the subject you were covering.

Today it's a different story with the advent of computers and the internet. The resource websites are abundant and you can find almost everything there is on any topic you want to research. The only warning I must include here is remember, this information is coming off the internet. This makes information highly susceptible to erroneous facts. It is in your best interest to confirm your source material and always footnote if neccessary.

Here's how to research effectively -

1: List of site resources - You can use these sites to gather your research.


2: Major and Minor Points - Find some articles and jot down 3-5 major and minor points about each topic or subject. There is no reason to over emphasize here unless you're doing a major research project where you need to get technical and indepth.


3: Confirm your facts - It's highly important not to skip this step. Confirming facts with two or three sources should be enough to assure you've gathered credible information. This definitely means you need to read from two or more different sources about the material your researching to obtain correct information.


4: Outline - Take the points of information you've gathered and arrange them as topics and subtopics. Creating an quick outline helps you stay organized and focused on what you are writing about.


5: Introduction and Conclusion - Two of the most important aspects of article writing and researching for an article is to include an introduction and conclusion in your article. Make sure to add these.


Gathering research for writng articles does not have to be a complicated, long, drawn out proceeedure. However, do not think a subject has to have a limited type of research. By all means explore to your hearts content. There is nothing wrong with eye witness accounts. It's even more suitable and intrestingt o read an article from an eye witness account. Seeing for youself can give you a unique perspective from which to write your articles. If you're going to do a food tasting it would be highly advisable to actually "Taste the food" before you write about how it taste.

Finding information to include in your articles is part of the article writing process. Article writing can be highly rewarding, quick, and easy using an organized, outline method.

Article summary Points -


1: Research and information is easy to find today on the internet.
2: List of site resources.
3: Jotting down major and minor points.
4: Confirm facts. Use two or three sources.
5: Outline for structure.
6: Include an introduction and conclusion in your article.
7: Eye witnessing or experiencing what you write about is more interesting and credible to readers.
8: Effective research is a vital part of the article process.

Just Keep Writing.

2 comments:

  1. Research is definitely important. And outlining is a good thing, too. I find that I don't need to outline for every article anymore...but I still do it. :)

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  2. Thanks for the comment Katherine. I've found I can sometimes just nilly willy it too, however I still write some notes down! ;-)

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