Researching Your First Writing Project

This is a core objective and it's where your work begins in earnest.

Without efficient research you are blowing in the wind and your proposal for publication is unlikely to touch the vital nerve that captures the attention of commissioning editors.

For many established authors researching is often the most fulfilling aspect of preparing a given topic for publication.

As you research you will find yourself uncovering diverse strands of critical new information that will tempt you veer off in other rewarding directions or even on occasion, change direction completely.

CHARTING THE ROUTE BEFORE YOU RESEARCH

Let’s imagine you are intent on producing a resource manual notionally entitled How to Become an Expert on Light Bulbs (you wouldn’t, but let’s just hypothecate for illustration purposes). Make out a list of the pivotal aspects of the subject. It might pan out like this.

o Light bulb sizes
o Shapes
o Power requirements
o Manufacturers
o Types of fitting
o Novelty bulbs
o Industrial bulbs
o Lighting for sports stadia
o Christmas lighting
o Stage lighting
o Street lighting
o High intensity
o Low intensity
…and so on

Now compare this listing with your list of what you know, what you don't know, and annotate each item on the list accordingly; tick for 'yes', cross for 'no'.

1. Connect to the Internet and open your browser - choose a search engine and type in ‘light bulbs’.

2. Start collecting links for everything you come across.

3. Divide the links into categories and sub-categories.

Finding out what you need to know online shouldn’t prove too difficult but you will cut down considerably on research time if you follow the directions outlined in the next section.

HOW TO CONDUCT INTENSIVE RESEARCH ONLINE

For best results the bulk of your research ought to be conducted online, but unless you know the shortcuts to effective cyberspace fact-finding, you could spend hours on end in fruitless searches.

It's very easy to stray when you are using the search engines because loads of similar looking topics and dissertations abound on the Internet.

But with your goals properly defined before you go out searching, you will be able to focus on exactly what it is you are setting out to uncover.

Comprehensive briefings are available in three authoritative reports you can read online or download for free.

How to Conduct Research on the Internet
http://www.tbchad.com/resrch.html
How to Conduct a Search Online
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/ivc/library/how1.htm
Internet Research - Finding Hard Data
http://www.bugsoft.com/research/index.html

Having absorbed the valuable information contained in these reports, I recommend you restrict your searching to http://www.google.com. Use the ‘advanced search’ facility and you’ll reduce your workload by several hours.

For some of the items on the list where you thought you knew it all, you'll learn more; for those you marked with a cross, you will locate answers to further enhance your grasp on the topic.

NICHE RESEARCHING

An excellent method for conducting online niche research is to use the keyword suggestion tool provided by http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

At that page, enter a keyword relating to the potential niche feature you have in mind, and the tool will present you with the number of times that keyword was searched on via the network. It will also show the number of times related keywords were searched on.

This will give you an indication of what your possible niche bears for interest.

If you find a decent amount of interest, say a few thousand or more combined monthly searches on keywords directly related to what you want to write about then you may be in a solid niche. Keep a file of the results of your keyword research.

Next, go to your favorite search engine and search on some of those same keywords. Keep a file of these results too. The information you uncover will be invaluable.

As you can readily appreciate, developing your concept requires some legwork and even after you have completed the research, you still have to write your book. But as with all good things, you get out of it only what you put in.

These online models for effective research can yield excellent results when done properly

http://1st-creative-writing-course.com