What random rabbit holes have you gone down while researching?

[pmmg]

Great. So now how to i get rid of the mice?

 

[skip.knox]

>I was researching medieval medicine and painkillers
My first observation is a question: why were you researching this? Did you just want to know more stuff about stuff, or do you have a specific scene in which a painkiller is used? Research is heavily dependent on the questions you ask.

Second, you have two topics here, not one; or, more properly, the one is a subset of the other. And the first is extremely broad. Medieval medicine? Try removing the adjective and then look at the statement again. "I was researching medicine". See what I mean? It's so broad you are guaranteed to acquire information more or less at random, which will make retrieving anything useful later a real chore. "Medieval medicine" is more a course of study than it is a research topic.

Third, I note it's a topic. Yes, I'm sort of re-stating the first point. Let's just take the narrower topic of painkillers. If you say "what painkillers were used in the Middle Ages" you haven't really helped yourself much. For example, you've not specified what kind of pain is involved. A bad scrape? Toothache? Is surgery involved? Amputation? You don't want your story to have the surgeon rubbing peppermint oil on an arrow wound.

If you had a question like "in the Middle Ages what kind of painkiller would be used for an amputation", you would get more useful answers.

IMO, both approaches have something to recommend it, and I consider neither of them rabbit holes (with the implication that going down same is a waste of time). Just hitting a topic is fine, so long as you're looking for an introduction, a survey, a review. That kind of research has its own methods for note-taking and organization, but let's leave that aside for now. The other research is targeted and is best done by crafting a good question. This, too, has its methods.

As long as you know why you've come to the Planetary AC, I'd argue there's no such thing as rabbit holes. It's all learning.

 

[Karlin]

I think we are seeing the two different approaches to writing here. Planners vs. Pantsers. If you are a planner, you know what you need from your research, you look for it, find it, and move on. Discipline and rules work in this space.

If you are a pantser, you don't know what's next, and you aren't 100% sure what you are looking for in researching a topic. And it could be that a rabbit hole will give you something you'll need in a later chapter.

It's like having a huge box of Lego bricks. The sister has the instructions on how to build a Lego Spaceship, so she'll search for the correct parts in the box, and build the spaceship according to the plans. Her brother, on the other hand, has a vague idea of 'Hey, let's build a cool spaceship', grabs a few interesting parts, sticks them together, looks for more parts, disassembles part of what he bult, and only halfway through has a clear image of what the final spaceship will look like.

If you swapped the children around, so the brother had the plan and the sister had to ad-lib, each would get bored or frustrated, and they'd abandon the Lego and go outside to ride their bikes.

K

 

[Mad Swede]

Makes sense, I'm very new to the craft (and I have no formal training in research) so I have a lot to learn still.

Any tips on doing effective research?

Effective research? skip.knox has already mentioned it, you need to be fairly specific in what you are researching. That means you need to have some idea of what it is you need to know more about and how (in the context of this discussion) it fits into what you are writing. These two factors set the boundaries for your search.

When you start a search on the internet, be as specific as you can as this will help limit the results you get back. Use a dictionary and/or a thesaurus to help select the right words and phrases to use in your search. Don't be afraid to use Wikipedia - the articles there are a good starting point, but what is a lot more useful is the list of references at the end of the articles. Once you start digging into that list you'll find yourself with a much larger list of references as many of the links will have other references.

Set a time limit for your searching, and then allow time to read. Always keep in mind what you need the information for, and don't get distracted by other cool things you find. Make sure you list where you found the information, so that you can go back later to check details or get more information. And once you have enough information, stop searching and start writing.

 

[JLiana]

>I was researching medieval medicine and painkillers
My first observation is a question: why were you researching this? Did you just want to know more stuff about stuff, or do you have a specific scene in which a painkiller is used? Research is heavily dependent on the questions you ask.

Second, you have two topics here, not one; or, more properly, the one is a subset of the other. And the first is extremely broad. Medieval medicine? Try removing the adjective and then look at the statement again. "I was researching medicine". See what I mean? It's so broad you are guaranteed to acquire information more or less at random, which will make retrieving anything useful later a real chore. "Medieval medicine" is more a course of study than it is a research topic.

Third, I note it's a topic. Yes, I'm sort of re-stating the first point. Let's just take the narrower topic of painkillers. If you say "what painkillers were used in the Middle Ages" you haven't really helped yourself much. For example, you've not specified what kind of pain is involved. A bad scrape? Toothache? Is surgery involved? Amputation? You don't want your story to have the surgeon rubbing peppermint oil on an arrow wound.

If you had a question like "in the Middle Ages what kind of painkiller would be used for an amputation", you would get more useful answers.

IMO, both approaches have something to recommend it, and I consider neither of them rabbit holes (with the implication that going down same is a waste of time). Just hitting a topic is fine, so long as you're looking for an introduction, a survey, a review. That kind of research has its own methods for note-taking and organization, but let's leave that aside for now. The other research is targeted and is best done by crafting a good question. This, too, has its methods.

As long as you know why you've come to the Planetary AC, I'd argue there's no such thing as rabbit holes. It's all learning.

I see what you mean! In my defense, I did search "what painkillers were used in medieval Finland" (the story I'm writing about is loosely based on Finland's climate, so I wanted to know about specific plants), it's just too easy for me to click on the other links on Wikipedia.

But I will keep this in mind going forward, you've articulated it really well. Specificity is what I need to focus on, it seems.