Category: editing

Are We Missing Something? Online Research’s Role in Writing and Editing

Is the Internet “making us stupid?” That question, asked of Google and the entirety of the web, was the focus of a recent Atlantic Monthly article that has stirred a lot of buzz.

I don’t think “stupid” is the right word, but I do think the Net is having a huge impact on the way writers and editors work today. And we should take a step back to look at how that change affects our written product.

I began my writing and editing career when the Net was really taking off as a source of information, not just a means of marketing or a techie meeting ground. More and more publications were going online. Amateur websites about obscure topics were being created on a daily basis, then overhauled by experts who added accuracy and legitimacy to their information.

Today’s writers can glean much of what they need from the web without ever setting foot in a library.

It’s fun detective work, trolling the web for that oddball quote in a trade publication, or uncovering a debate you didn’t know existed, or finding out your profile subject is a champion Frisbee-thrower.

But my academic experience doing research in the field of European history—reading primary sources in the bowels of an old library, visiting foreign book collections and archives, scrolling through reams of microfilm and fiche, straining to read handwritten notations, wearing special gloves to handle 200-year-old cartoons—taught me how to dig beneath the surface of things.

Scrolling through the Net doesn’t always yield a full picture. Not everything is there, especially if it’s more than a few years old, or requires more than a few paragraphs of explanation. You have to ask yourself what you’re not seeing online, and you have to go to the source—whether that’s a research paper, a book that references older books, and those books too, or the people at the heart of an idea or project.

Net-only researchers are missing out. There are decades’ worth—dare I say centuries’ worth—of relevant information crammed away in libraries’ troves of books, magazines, microfilms, special collections, and more. Some of this is starting to crop up online through sources like Google News Archive, but many, many gaps remain.

Writing that exclusively relies on the Internet without any other sources of information reminds me of those book reviews some students wrote in high school after watching the movie version of the book—or just reading the Cliff’s notes.

So if a research topic piques your interest, go to the page, not just the screen. And then go to the person, too—that’s still the most important source. (One reason I did not become an academic historian was that my interest in learning from other people, rather than just paper sources, was so strong.)

One more thought: Another side effect of the Net is that it may someday impede research into our own era. The Internet may have replaced much of our culture’s paper ephemera—the broadsides and fliers of old, and increasingly, the muckraking and the opinion-shaping, will now live on computers. And that will certain be a barrier if our servers and hard drives crash without leaving backups behind. And what’s more, that will be a problem for future historians unable to track down hard copies of just about anything.

Five Keys to a Great Story about a Complex Idea


Communicating complex ideas is what I love to do. While these stories are never formulaic, I try to incorporate five basic elements that make for a good story. Here are my keys to an informative, engaging piece of writing about a research topic of other complicated subject.

What is the idea or research topic?
After first boning up on the field, I spend some time with the source of the idea. Usually that source is a person, though sometimes, the idea may be expressed in a research paper, book, or website. Either way, I try to talk to the researcher or another expert in the field who can explain it in the clearest way possible.

When interviewing experts, it’s important to underline the fact that the written product will be for an audience of nonspecialists. I prefer to meet with people in person if I can, but if geographical distance is a barrier, a phone conversation can work well.

Even if I feel silly asking a very basic question about the topic, I don’t hesitate to do this if there’s something I don’t fully understand. Since the writer has a fresh perspective on a topic that may be very familiar to the researcher, new questions can lead to new approaches to the subject—ones even the specialist may never have thought of before. Once I asked a researcher who’d created a computer model for walking whether changing the dynamics of the model’s gait would make the walker move faster. He replied he hadn’t considered it before, but that it would be a good idea for future research.

Why now, and why does it matter?
The “why now” question is essential to any good journalism or promotional writing because it explains the idea’s urgency and news value. In other words, it gives busy people a reason to care—and therefore, to keep reading.

Explaining why a topic matters is vital even if the subject has a technical nature. If it’s research that could lead to curing a deadly disease, there’s very little to explain here. Or the subject may be highly topical. For instance, people are more interested in renewable energy now that gas has topped $4 a gallon. If it’s a topic that’s more esoteric—like the politics of ancient Greece—the writer has a bit more work to do. But most good research bears some important relation to today’s world and people’s needs. For example, ancient politics can shed light on today’s political struggles by showing the limits of empire or the dangers of dictatorship.

Who is behind it?
Here’s the writer’s chance to portray the researcher(s) or inventor(s) with a human face. Everyone wants to know how smart people work. Maybe the person’s work methods or style will inspire the next discovery, or maybe the person’s quirks are just interesting because they’re odd.

We’ve all read the clichés about the brilliant academic working in isolation in some far-flung archive, or the genius scientist laboring alone in a lab at 2 a.m.—and just happening upon the discovery of the century. These notions may sometimes have a grain of truth, but I try to look beyond them to find the source of the person’s passion. Did she get interested in the topic or field because of her parents, a teacher, or a book or even a movie? What lengths did she go to to gain her expertise? What sparked her discovery?

Who disagrees or offers a competing point of view?
In most cases, it’s important to present the other side of the story—are there other researchers who disagree? Or is there a competing theory out there? The venue for the writing and the topic itself dictate how much time one should spend on this. Among scientists, there’s a feeling that often, too much time is spent trying to show both sides of a controversial issue such a global warming, when enough evidence exists on one side to make the answer clear.

What is the future of this idea?
Before ending the piece, I try to add some thoughts about where this idea or research area is headed. Most experts will be glad to share their predictions about the direction of their field or what they plan to do to further their research. This opens the story up for a broad conclusion that may pique readers’ interest for my next endeavor in communicating complexity.