Research - Where To Go And How To Research

Gathering the elements that help make your book become relevant and believable can be straining for anyone. Often times, you may find yourself confused on how to conduct your investigation. But this phase in writing is actually very essential for your book to become believable and actually more original.

However, as long as you know where to start and as long as you have a clear idea on what you want to achieve with your work, then this would not be much of a problem. Here are a few basic steps that you can follow in doing research for your writing masterpiece.

Identify Your Topic And Develop It

The very first step before you conduct your research is to identify your topic and what certain goals you want to derive from writing about it. Develop it by stating it as a question. Through this, you would be on a clear tract on what particular dilemma you want answered and what facts will give you the proper replies until you reach the end of your investigative phase.

For example, if your topic of choice in your book is about love, then identify questions on what particular aspects about love you want to delve into. In this way, you are given a guide and a clear flow on how you want your story to go. This is a very good step to help you organize thoughts.

Find Basic Background Information

Establish the very basic information that you need to know about your topic. Search for keywords and do preliminary reading in encyclopedias and dictionaries that help you know what it is. In this phase, concentrate on general information as the very basics, so that later on, you would be guided on what other related information you should actually search about it.

Research On Current Studies And Exhaust Your Sources

After you have studied about your topics general information, this is the time wherein you can expand to the specific details about the theme. This may include exhausting many types of sources including informative published articles and even current or up to date studies that may present you with statistics and the latest findings.

Make sure that you exhaust all your sources to know as much as you can about your topic. You can even use the Internet or popular magazines to know about how your issue is affected by pop culture. This may even also include having to ask other people of their opinions on the issues that you are trying to touch. These can give you many ideas and insights that may prove to be very useful to your work.

Just make sure that you are still guided in doing your research according what questions you have developed in the preliminary stages of your research process. And make sure to always go back to the root issue, and do not deviate too much from the topic.

And also, keep in mind that not all the information you gather may be directly used as sources for you book, however many types of information that you can gather can still be very useful to give you ideas on what to write.

Evaluate The Information

Before you close your research, it is very important to evaluate the things you have discovered about your topic. Make sure that you synthesize and separate what pieces of information can truly be useful for your book and those which can be too trivial.

Also make sure that you properly classify your types of information and which sources they come from. Although you may get ideas from magazines and newspapers, they aren't usually used for academic purposes. And most especially, you cannot copy Internet information as they can make your book look very superficial and lacking in research. Use pieces of information that you have gathered from these sources as back-up notes that could contribute ideas to you.

Make sure that you identify and include facts and pieces of information that are most vivid and could help you sound convincing with your writing. And if you need to copy a certain idea from another published writer, never forget to places sources on your quotations.

These are simple steps that can guide you to have an organized research. Remember that conducting the proper investigation to collect facts and bits of information will be very essential for your book to truly speak out with a convincing voice and particularly one that is well backed-up with facts.

Doing research may be draining and confusing at first, but once you have created a good plan for your subject and finished collecting the information that you need, you will surely see how your hard work on doing research has been worth. After all, your research may just perhaps become the defining factor whether your work will convince people or not.