education
10 THINGS WORTH KNOWING
ABOUT THE RESEARCH PROCESS
1. If you are researching birds or
dinosaurs or Zheng He or space
travel or pretty much anything else,
reading through physical books is
much more enjoyable than reading
on screen. And the act of flicking
through pages and letting your eyes
wander across illustrations is great
for triggering ideas.
2. BUT, if you are writing a non-fiction
essay and your topic MUST have
up-to-date facts, use the Internet
instead. Things are continuously
being discovered. So, for example, a
book might say that Ur was the first
real city in the world, but the Internet
may tell you that archeologists more
recently decided that Jericho should
have that title.
3. At the same time, we need to be
very careful of “facts” on the Internet.
The web is full of traps for junior
researchers. The Internet is written
by its users, many of whom are just
not very careful and a few of whom
have deliberate bad intentions. Try to
get a few different sources to confirm
facts before you accept them.
4. Don’t trust anyone! Well, that’s a
bit melodramatic, but what we
mean is this: Always maintain a little
healthy skepticism. When you read
something presented as a fact, don’t
immediately accept it as such. Take
it as an assertion that someone has
made, and then decide yourself how
much credence (that means level
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of believability) you will give it. If it’s
specifically designed to make you
startled or angry or click a link, avoid it.
5. Check the writer’s motivation. If your
mother says: “It’s really cold today,
wear a coat,” you can give her the
highest level of credence. She’s your
mother, she cares for you, and you
know it’s winter anyway.
But imagine you are presented
with a “fact” such as this: “Sprinkle
fruit on this breakfast cereal and you
can count it as one of your five a day.”
How can sugary cereal be part
of our recommended five portions
a day of fruit and vegetables? The
cereal maker is trying to trick us
into associating his or her product
with healthy eating. We wouldn’t be
fooled by that, would we?
6. In many ways, this writer is a big
fan of Wikipedia, which is by far the
most popular online encyclopedia.
But it’s very important to take
reports on Wikipedia with healthy
skepticism too.
The writers of Wikipedia tend to
be male and Western.
As a result, we will typically see
very long articles on trivial subjects
such as the light sabers used in
the movie series Star Wars, while
historically important cultural topics
from, say, Africa, get little or no
coverage! Medical treatments
such as acupuncture from Asia
are listed in Wikipedia under
“pseudoscience,” which it is not.
7. An under-used resource is the
school librarian. Just wait until she
or he is not busy, and then ask for
help. School librarians are trained
in finding information, and can
often cut minutes, hours, or days
off a research project. And they’re
lovely people! (This is very often true
for folk who love books!) In fact,
school librarians can often be a bit
frustrated that some of the best
resources in their libraries are rarely
used—and so they are delighted
to help students who want to do
serious research.
8. The other best resource is your own
enthusiasm. If you are interested
in something, it’s amazing what
you can achieve. When I was at
school, I found the section of books
that interested me—science and
ecology—and sat at a table next
to that bookcase. I read almost all
the books, one after another, going
through entire shelves, volume after
volume, day after day, week after
week. Teachers congratulated me
on working so hard—but I wasn’t
working, I was having fun!
9. Some people think non-fiction work
has to be serious and dull. Your
science teacher might think it odd
if you wrote a chemistry essay as a
funny poem. But all pieces of writing
need to be interesting—otherwise,
why would anyone read them? So
find offbeat or eye-opening facts
about the topic you have to cover,
and include them in your final essay.
10. And one last fact about facts: This
article is wrong! Science works
by continuously assuming that
any set of findings is either wrong,
incomplete, or at least capable of
improvement. And that includes the
facts in this article. That’s just how
science works. It’s not a problem,
but just part of the process. So one
day this list will be improved by a
better writer.
It might be you!
The First of Everything by Nury Vittachi
has recently been published by World
Scientific Education