Guide to Polished Writing - Pursue the Goal, Phase 1: Complete Your Research
October 14th 2008 21:40
Note: This post presents Part 5 of my Guide to Polished Writing series. For more thorough coverage of the topic, please consider reading Parts 1 through 4, as well. You’ll find them in my Writer’s Notes’ Pillar Posts list under “Writing: The Craft.” (My apologies for the long gap between the last post in the series and this one! So many factors conspired against its completion!)
Pursue the Goal
Once the preliminaries of developing your plan, organizing, and creating your structure are out of the way, you can get down to the actual business of fleshing out your framework through research and beginning to create your written work.
Phase 1: Complete Your Research
Research Requirements Vary By Project
Depending on the type of writing you’re working on, you may require a great deal of research, very little, or possibly none. Every writing project is different. Often, non-fiction will call for the most comprehensive research—though this is by no means always true. It really depends on the depth and complexity of your topic, as well as the degree of your own expertise in your subject matter.
Quite often, fiction will also require a significant amount of research, as the writer seeks to present believable characters, settings, situations, and action. As one might expect, historical fiction demands particular diligence in research, as the author recreates both the realistic surroundings and accurate events of another time, skillfully weaving them together with the story’s plot to create a historically integrated tale.
Poetry, on the other hand, might require no research at all—unless it, too, is historical or you decide to study its various forms and elements before crafting your poem. You may also choose to research the works of other skillful poets, either famous or more obscure, before you write to see what’s been done before, thereby enriching your creative perspective and acquiring a more comprehensive literary or cultural context for your poem.
Research Is an Ongoing Process
In this guide, I’ve placed research after planning, with the assumption that you’ll actually be researching more or less continuously (as necessary) while you develop and organize your writing plan. Many would place research much earlier in the writing process, since a certain amount of preliminary research is needed in order to even begin to plan a written work. Yet, knowing that research is largely an intuitive process best engaged in when specific information is needed, and trusting the writer to consult appropriate sources whenever the need arises, I’ve chosen to emphasize research during this late stage of the process, at which time you’ll begin pulling together your ongoing research before beginning to write and completing it only during the writing stage.
You’ll likely find it helpful to fill in as many of your informational blanks as possible before you begin your actual writing, putting the final touches on your research only as needed during the writing process, by investigating the finer points of your topic as you write.
The Study Guides and Strategies website places research much earlier in the writing process than I have in this series. However, I trust you, as the creator of your written work, to recognize when and what specific research you require to give your piece form, substance, accuracy, and credibility. The foregoing website presents a number of helpful resources for completing your research, planning and organizing your piece—resources which you can use no matter when you choose to complete that research.
To your writing success,
Jeanne
Stay tuned for the next installment of this series: "Pursue the Goal, Phase 2: Write Your Piece."
Did you enjoy this post? Have any thoughts to share about research? Do you follow a specific plan when completing your research, or do you "go with the flow," completing research as needed and as the spirit moves? Or does it vary with the project? Have you found many--or any--differences in your research habits based on the type of writing you're doing? Or, are you fortunate enough to know so much about a topic (or niche) that you can write about it with little or no research? We'd love to hear your thoughts!
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Comment by Mark Antony
It's always best to have an action plan before one starts writing. Though in my case, the novel is already written, and I'm just editing it for serialisation, prior to creating an e-book!
But my new website will be for all types of fiction and writing, so I;ll be sure to make a note of your suggestions for future works.
You might remember me from my previous websites, I now run three, for sure I'll be adding your link to mine, thanks always for your advice and co-operation.
Mark.
Comment by Jeanne Dininni
Writer's Notes
I wish you great success with both your novel and your new websites! Thanks so much for your willingness to add a link to Writer's Notes to your sites! I'm certainly willing to do the same for any of your sites that are relevant to writing.
Thanks for the visit!
Jeanne
Comment by Mark Antony
Best wishes, Mark.
Comment by Jeanne Dininni
Writer's Notes
Thanks so much! I've already linked to your Bloggers Quest blog in my "Sites for Writers" list. I'll see whether I can find a place for a link to your novel, as well.
Thanks for stopping back!
Jeanne
Comment by Ellen Weber
In university courses I teach research too often tends to be rather one sided so that it defends the same assumptions that writers bring to a topic and then support with multiple one-sided examples.
How do you help your research writers to look carefully at research that supports and teaches from counterpoints to their ideas?
Comment by Jeanne Dininni
Writer's Notes
Your question is a thought-provoking one. I would say that the amount and type of research a writer might engage in would greatly depend on the type of piece being written. For example, one would expect a persuasive piece to require very different research standards than would a straight factual piece--and to certainly have far less rigorous requirements than would an investigative piece or a comparative study of competing topics or issues.
I do agree, though, that no matter what type of writing we do, we should always do our best to be as balanced as possible in finding, evaluating, and incorporating our research into our written work--consulting various (and multi-dimensional) sources whenever possible and/or practical. I also agree that it's important for us to examine our own views and honestly ask ourselves whether we might not learn something of value from the opposing viewpoint, thereby broadening our perspective considerably.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful query!
Jeanne