Class 15 - From pitching to researching
Checking In
This time, we’re talking about researching your nonfiction stories. But as usual, we’ll give you five minutes to check in and see how you are all doing.
Sharing our Pitches
We’re now going to be sharing our pitches. You’ve already submitted these to get feedback from me and Anukuvi. But it’s good to get as much feedback as possible. So we want you to post your pitches onto the Our Stories website. We’ll give you a few minutes to do this.
Now we want you to go into breakout groups, and to give feedback on your pitches. Read your pitch out loud. And for feedback, share with your fellow students:
- What you find most interesting about this pitch
- What you didn’t understand, or weren’t clear about
- What ideas you have for how the writer can strengthen the pitch
- What ideas you have for how the writer can research the pitch
Thinking About Research
The word “research” comes from the Old French recercher, meaning to examine something with care, or to search closely. The word is made up of two parts: the intensifier “re-”, and the word “cercher”, or “to seek.” The root of the second part, cercher, comes from the Latin verb circare, meaning “to wander”, or “to roam around,” or “to go to and fro.”
For creative nonfiction writers, this is a nice way to think about what research involves. It is an intensive process of wandering about, seeing what you might find, going to and fro, exploring a subject, with your eyes and ears open to what you might find.
More practically, however, research may involve a number of things. Here are some of them:
- Consulting libraries / books / journals
- Searching on the internet for specialist materials.
- Contacting experts
- Visiting places
- Learning new skills.
An Example
Let me give another example. For the pitch from last time, about the revival of Siraya language, the indigenous Taiwanese language, I did the following:
- I did a lot of reading of academic books, articles, online essays, anything I could find.
- I got in touch with the people involved in working on the revival of the language. I met up with them, spoke to them, recorded interviews with them.
- I visited some places associated with Siraya language and culture.
- I found some textbooks, and started to learn a little of the language myself.
Using the internet for research
Remember that the internet is a wealth of information… and of misinformation. For example, there are a lot of fake quotes out there. Look at the following websites:
This means that the internet needs to be managed carefully. You should check all your online sources of information for reliability (do you know who is writing this?) and for consistency (is it backed up by other information from reliable sources)?
So it makes sense to use good sources as a starting point. Research is a creative process. It takes a lot of imagination and skill. The information you want may be hiding somewhere non-obvious.
As students at Parami, you have a head-start, as you have access to the riches of Perlego and JStor. For the next exercise, I’m going to put you into pairs, and ask you to work together to help each other research. Why work in pairs? Because sometimes having two pairs of eyes on a project can be helpful.
In your pairs, share your topics with each other. Then work together to find research materials related to this topic. For each topic, you need:
- TWO or THREE academic papers, or reliable online sources (essays, articles, creative nonfiction), that relate to this topic
- TWO or THREE books (from Perlego or elsewhere) that may relate to topic.
- Any other ways that you can actively research this topic
When you have done this, individually post your topic, and the research materials you have found, on the Our Stories padlet.
Discussion
What challenges are you going to face in researching this?
Homework
Get researching! And get drafting your piece. We would like you to bring an initial draft to the next workshop (it doesn’t have to be complete, but you need to have made a start!)