One Click (Re)Searching

"If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search... I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor." —Nikola Tesla

By Scoti Springfield Domeij

Narrow Your Search Quicker

Do you feel like conducting research like finding a needle in a haystack? Not sure where to look? Overwhelmed by the mound of research available on the web? My default (re)search engine is Google.com. What's yours? Yahoo? Live Search? Ask?

Sperse, a meta search engine, might save you 90% of your labor. Sperse searches multiple search engines with one click.

Sperse's Features:

• Searches across multiple sites including Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, and Ask
  
• Filters out duplicate results for improved accuracy and relevancy
  
• Searches the web, images, videos, news, music, video, and local listings
  
• Provides a real-time thumbnail preview of the webpage directly from the search results
  
• Answers a question by typing the question and receiving the answer from Yahoo! Answers
  
• Narrows your search by location using zip codes

Tools You Can Use: Google’s News Timeline

"Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away." —Marcus Aurelius

By Scoti Springfield Domeij

What's Going On in the World? A Visual Map

Research is part of a writer's life whether you write fiction or nonfiction. Google's News Timeline helps you research through time and space. Finding ways to save time researching, adds to your actual writing time. What news stories, personalities or events denominated your novel's timeframe? What recent statistics would support your book proposal? Google's News Timeline offers numerous creative opportunities to use this tool to beef up your writing.

Google's News Timeline Features

• View daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or even decade-centric stories
  
• Follow important stories over time
  
• Find older stories hidden in newspaper and magazine archives
  
• View trends in events, culture and society or the careers of famous people
  
• Refine your search to specific times, magazines, newspapers, or blogs
  
• Search specific categories, including news quotes or news photos, blogs, TV shows and even prizes, like the Nobel
  
• Display all recent New York Times book reviews
  
• Organizes information chronologically on a zoomable, graphical timeline
  
• Set the specific time period
  
• Filters movies, sports scores, music, and magazines
  
• View news and other data sources on a browsable, graphical timeline
  
• Searches historical news, scanned newspapers and magazines, blog posts, sports scores, and information about various types of media, like music albums and movies
  
• Click on an area of the timeline to zoom in and look at a shorter date range in finer detail, or simply double-click to zoom out
  
• Control the width of the columns, by selecting sizes of small, medium or large, to change the scale to shrink or enlarge the data on the timeline
  
• Go directly to a specific date by entering the date into the "Date" field on the control bar
  
• Date field recognizes phrases like today, yesterday, this week or last week, and this month or last month
  
• "Wikipedia Events" and "Time Magazine" are built-in by default, but you can turn those sources off
  
• Add events, births, and deaths from Wikipedia by selecting "Wikipedia" from the menu bar and entering the category you'd like displayed on the timeline
  
• View information from Freebase about various types of media, including books, music, and movies

Eerie Writing Experience

"The bees pillage the flowers here and there but they make honey of them which is all their own; it is no longer thyme or marjolaine: so the pieces borrowed from others he will transform and mix up into a work all his own."—Michael Eyquen de Montaigne

Busy writer bees Google key words to find "original" writing ideas. I researched holiday blues and depression so I could write an article for my solo parenting blog, www.courageoussingleparenting.blogspot.com. Then today I picked up a magazine and read an article about holiday depression. The words sounded eerily familiar. From the three triggers that cause holiday depression to other points, the article sounded just like my research. I could even underline familiar lines that I recall reading. So much for a photographic memory. It was a strange feeling to think that the writer may have researched the topic on Google and then cut and pasted together a "new" article.

Beyond Google

I use Google to jumpstart my creative process, read what's already been written and learn from experts. However, this article sounded neither new nor fresh. If you rely on Google searches for research, here are a few tips to avoid plagiarism.

1. Write using your own voice and your experiences. Do not cut and paste other people's voices and stories.
   
2. Quote others. Link to their article. But please avoid regurgitating other's viewpoints or phrases. What do you think or believe about the topic? Share it.
   
3. Do not copy and paste a quote and then substitute words using your Thesaurus. Read the information, and then say it aloud in your own words. Now write it.
   
4. Give credit where credit is due.
   
5. When you paraphrase keep the facts and content in context.
   
6. Run your copy through http://www.plagiarismchecker.com. It will identify whether you've accidentally copied from the Internet. Plagiarism Checker can also help you find out whether someone has plagiarized your work and posted it to the Internet.

When Scholars Disagree

"Scholarship is polite argument." — Philip Rieff

Confessions of a Researchaholic

As the editor for the CD-ROM, Jesus, The Man, The Message, The Messiah by Ray Vander Laan, I was chief fact checker. Ray wrote statements that sounded like irrefutable facts about baptism, the mikvah and the Essenes. My two Baptist proofreaders went ballistic. Ray’s viewpoint differed from their theological understandings.

Upon further research regarding the Essenes, I discovered that the scholars disagreed. To alleviate potential unnecessary arguments, I prefaced opinionated assertions by introductory statements:

“Some scholars believe…”
“Based on the author’s research, he thinks…”
“In my opinion…”
“These studies found…”

Writing Considerations

Who is your audience? What is your writing angle? How will you try to persuade the reader to consider your viewpoint?

If scholars have disagreed about something for hundreds of years, you might consider the following.

* State the conflict between scholars or experts to prevent alienating readers.

* Acknowledge both points of view, and then state your arguments for and against.

* If you feel strongly about a topic, study the subject in-depth. Before writing, become skilled enough to state what you believe and why you believe it. After writing, accept without offense and respect differing opinions from readers.

* You may decide it is best to avoid “pet” or divisive theologies, ideologies, philosophies, or political stances.

* Focus on points of agreement and steer away from explosive issues.

Research: Think Outside the Box

"The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest astonishment." — Celia Green

I love researching. However, projects I intensely dislike are those “parental projects” assigned by teachers to children who cannot complete them without a parent’s help. In second grade my son, Kristoffer, was assigned one of those dreaded “parental projects”—a transportation report.

As a single parent, it was just one more ball to add to all the balls I was trying to keep in the air. To add to my frustration, my son chose a sports car unfamiliar to me—Lamborghini—the Diablo.

I figured out it was an Italian car. Seven-year-old Kristoffer prepared the questions that I faxed to Italy to the President of Lamborghini—after figuring out how to dial 011 plus the number. Lamborghini replied and informed us that Lee Iacocca now owned Lamborghini.

I called Iacocca’s office and was given his fax number. I faxed Kristoffer’s questions to Iacocca. A Vice President replied via Federal-Express. Not only did he answer all Kristoffer’s questions, but he included some pictures that were collector’s items to include in the report.

Next, I called Lamborghini of Beverly Hills to set up an interview with the manager. In our 1978 beat-up Volvo named “Old Betsy,” I drove Kristoffer to Beverly Hills. Kristoffer interviewed the manager who also gave him a tour that ended with Kristoffer purchasing pictures and a "Lamborghini Parking Only" sign.

Kristoffer wrote his report and made his poster. “WE” got an A-, which disappointed me. In my opinion, the teacher missed the importance of what Kristoffer learned about creative research and the writing process.

Research is an experience, not just about reading and writing neatly written words on the page. No matter the project, think outside the box and make it fun.