Writing Blog Number 2

20240802 Non-Fiction Part 2: Research

Non-Fiction Part 2: Research

After looking at creative non-fiction last time, there is one unifying aspect of writing non-fiction that cannot be avoided.

This brings me to the topic of research.

No matter what sort of non-fiction you write, research is vital. And, in this day and age, really, stupidly difficult. The Internet might be a liberating force and makes life easier (allegedly) in so many ways, but when it comes to research… Yikes!

Yes, the Internet has long made research hard. Sort of.

Basically, research should not change from the way we did it in the 1980s. But people think going back like that is “hard.”

So, researching online. While you have access to research papers which have been peer-reviewed in a much easier manner than having to go to various universities hoping they have the journal, you do need to pay for access (sometimes a lot) or, like me, be a permanent student. That is easier. But… who do you trust apart from peer-reviewed journal papers? Sites marked “.gov” are supposed to be trustworthy places for governmental information, including geography, government, laws, etc. Some governments have a lot of oversight, but generally the “.gov” sites of the USA, Australia, Canada, UK are very separate from the politics of the ruling government of the day. That is also easier.

Brittanica.com is generally regarded as the best online encyclopaedia, but that is because it maintains the paper version’s format and style. Basic info presented for people to use to begin further research, with citations and references.

Wikipedia is good only for the footnotes. As an information source, it is rubbish because it is written and edited by people who think they know. And, doing some research for my book, I discovered some of the footnotes are made up and the references do not exist. It’s not like I am looking for obscure stuff, but Wikipedia’s “vetting” process has allowed falsehoods in. See, literally anyone with an Internet connection (who has not been previously banned) can edit or write for Wikipedia; it is a communal pit of some good stuff and some made-up stuff and a lot of opinion stuff. Not a great resource in and of itself. Hardly a usable resource, truth be told.

Otherwise, finding actual hard information on the Internet is very hit or miss, and separating the wheat from the chaff is like looking for a needle in a haystack. (Metaphor mixing is my super-power.)

Unfortunately, too many modern books use the Internet as a referencing source, and so it does cast their information in a dubious light. I even found a book on Greek mythology, designed to tell the myths for a new audience, that got the legend of Heracles wrong in too many different areas. I checked the references; many were from various blogs. Hardly a font of genuine information. But because I know my mythology, I knew it was mistaken; a person new to this will not know.

So, what to do? It’s easy, actually. Utilise books from the twentieth century. Not all are perfect (the 90s saw a lot of opinion as fact tomes start to appear), but more are useful than the Internet. This will require reading, and will require not being able to use the “search” function, but I have found when researching my book that it is better to be safe than sorry.

Yes, there are some topics where the Internet is one of the only available sources of information, especially modern ones. I am forced to use the Internet for modern cryptid sightings for my own book. But I never rely on just one source. I need to find at least two…

Problem!

Circular sources are a huge issue online, where you look long enough and end up back at one single source, and that is not good enough. Research is not something you can toss off in a half an hour. It is a long and complex process, and requires the writer take it all seriously and be prepared to do the leg work (figuratively speaking).

I am about to begin a book on a local history topic, and I have 2 and a half years to complete it. That’s good. I have a lot of time to research, then write it and get everything else done. Anything less would be letting my readers down and, worse, letting myself down.

Research is vital. Proper and thorough research is essential.

It also seems to be a thing of the past.