Okay, Smartypants, you figure it out! Get in there and dig (digg?) - isn’t this what research is all about? Or is it the cool composed review of previously digested information? All you have to do is look for it and list it, right? Well, not exactly.
While working on a research project recently, I’ve been thinking about the nature of research itself.
When I was teaching Research Skills for Writers and Reporters, I shared many tips and tricks of the trade, including the reality of hours of searching that may or may not yield the result that is being sought. A simple research timelog reveals the process. Hours spent in one direction that brings another lead, then several, then the branching out of the mind from item to lead to dead end to lateral correlation to new lead, and so it goes through the windy twisty passageways. Research doesn’t always reveal the answer directly, but through resonance and correspondance leads are found. And sometimes, there is a big pay off! Aladdin’s Cave of treasure: it’s all there for the picking!
I see research as a subtle dance between intuition and intelligence. It helps if your mind has been trained to categorize and make connections. It helps if you can keep track of what you have done, to retrace your steps if need be. And it helps if you can trust a hunch, make a lateral leap of the mind, think poetically to synthesize concepts. Intelligence serves the intuition at that point, and new ideas are formed that make new sense of old information.
The results of research are more than just a list of quotes and places. They are a synthesis of the information. Information is easy to find. The need is to make sense of the information, to be in a position to prioritize that information and to define uses for the most salient aspects of the information. Research is more than finding and keeping, it is a process of sorting and defining that ultimately yields new information that can be acted upon.