Cecil Adams of the Chicago Reader (his website can be seen at http://www.straightdope.com/ makes a carrer out of researching esoteric questions. From what I can tell of his articles, he searches an ungodly amount of archives and tries to go to the experts that he'd expect to know the answer. It's a lot of elbow grease, to say the least.
(For example, he went to a lot of elevator companies, but it took a lot of asking around before he found out if the "close door" button actually does anything.)
Based on Mary's post, I decided to go ahead and just ask Cecil himself what he thinks of your question, Joleen. If and when he replies, I'll post it as well as my personal thoughts on the question. =D
It'll be interesting to see what someone who has made a career from this specific area has to say about original research.
It looks like I'm attempting to break new ground in this project. I'm finding that I'm just researching two different topics. One being minimalist design, and the other being modern logo design. I'm the one having to draw conclusions and parallels based upon the research. It seems to be going well enough. I just hope that my findings are plausible, and not utter BS!
WOW! I'm not shear that I can write a lot for this one but I can always try. If the question has never been asked and then why do you need the answer? No I think you do research and research and more research so that you can find the right information to made a intelligent answer. Then after that post it on a blog or get the copy right for it.
There should always be some source one could ascertain. It seems unlikely one would ask a question in the first place unless there were some cultural relevance or significance to it. Mankind has been asking questions since women still had hair on their faces, and I'm sure most topics have been covered in one form or another.
How do you answer a question that has never been asked? You make the question up yourself and then answer it hopeing that other people will get a reaction and give their own opinions and answers. But what is a question that has never been asked before...hmmmm.....
I run into this alot as i do alot of research on 3d software and processes, what i find is the best way is to break down the question into its individual elemetns and then research those finding anything related to your topic in each of the subtopics and try to formt he answer to your question through indirect observation of tyhe facts of the questions elements.
Let's see my question definately has been asked before but answered in many different ways. Through my research I had to ascertain what was relevant to my own answer to the question. So many people have different ideas about what happened in the past and what was the start of the heart symbol.
To answer a truly original question, you would have to be the pioneer of that question. Research any and everything remotely related. Try your best and let others input their findings along the way, eventually the question will be answered; not always how you intended or too many, yet answered.
This week I did online research. This week was much more profitable because the internet is such a powerful tool. It has infinite possibilites, but I definately had to be wary of ones that were just of opinion and not fact. Most of mine ended up being just that, opinion, but I mostly stuck with ones where I could research the credentials of that author. The author had to have some credibility.
yes, this is a good one. But if no one has written about your question before, that means that your question is not interesting at all... just kidding!! I think maybe you should try to find other questions that can be related to yours... and start from there. If you want to study about the Banana-Eater bug, but nobody wrote nothing about it, just start researching about the Banana!
Blog Post: 008 Title: Actually Just Found OUT!!! *&(*JFKJLJAHI!! - RAWR!!
So I just found out... that I DID loose work!! Yeah 4 freakin' pages of my bibliography!! I am furious!! and Think I am going to just leave it as be.
/sigh... life sucks... sometimes.
----------------------------------
So! Original Research! =D
I believe that through diverse, yet related research, one can come to a rational conclusion.
For instance, I looked up psychology, surrealism, psychoanalysis' of surrealism, fetishism, fashion, the history of corsets, psyhoanalysis' of cosetry, and images of corsets and surrealism. Many different realms for a cohessive thought. =)
10 comments:
Cecil Adams of the Chicago Reader (his website can be seen at http://www.straightdope.com/ makes a carrer out of researching esoteric questions. From what I can tell of his articles, he searches an ungodly amount of archives and tries to go to the experts that he'd expect to know the answer. It's a lot of elbow grease, to say the least.
(For example, he went to a lot of elevator companies, but it took a lot of asking around before he found out if the "close door" button actually does anything.)
Okay.
Based on Mary's post, I decided to go ahead and just ask Cecil himself what he thinks of your question, Joleen. If and when he replies, I'll post it as well as my personal thoughts on the question. =D
It'll be interesting to see what someone who has made a career from this specific area has to say about original research.
It looks like I'm attempting to break new ground in this project. I'm finding that I'm just researching two different topics. One being minimalist design, and the other being modern logo design. I'm the one having to draw conclusions and parallels based upon the research. It seems to be going well enough. I just hope that my findings are plausible, and not utter BS!
Time will tell.
WOW! I'm not shear that I can write a lot for this one but I can always try. If the question has never been asked and then why do you need the answer? No I think you do research and research and more research so that you can find the right information to made a intelligent answer. Then after that post it on a blog or get the copy right for it.
There should always be some source one could ascertain. It seems unlikely one would ask a question in the first place unless there were some cultural relevance or significance to it. Mankind has been asking questions since women still had hair on their faces, and I'm sure most topics have been covered in one form or another.
How do you answer a question that has never been asked? You make the question up yourself and then answer it hopeing that other people will get a reaction and give their own opinions and answers. But what is a question that has never been asked before...hmmmm.....
I run into this alot as i do alot of research on 3d software and processes, what i find is the best way is to break down the question into its individual elemetns and then research those finding anything related to your topic in each of the subtopics and try to formt he answer to your question through indirect observation of tyhe facts of the questions elements.
Let's see my question definately has been asked before but answered in many different ways. Through my research I had to ascertain what was relevant to my own answer to the question. So many people have different ideas about what happened in the past and what was the start of the heart symbol.
To answer a truly original question, you would have to be the pioneer of that question. Research any and everything remotely related. Try your best and let others input their findings along the way, eventually the question will be answered; not always how you intended or too many, yet answered.
This week I did online research. This week was much more profitable because the internet is such a powerful tool. It has infinite possibilites, but I definately had to be wary of ones that were just of opinion and not fact. Most of mine ended up being just that, opinion, but I mostly stuck with ones where I could research the credentials of that author. The author had to have some credibility.
yes, this is a good one. But if no one has written about your question before, that means that your question is not interesting at all... just kidding!!
I think maybe you should try to find other questions that can be related to yours... and start from there.
If you want to study about the Banana-Eater bug, but nobody wrote nothing about it, just start researching about the Banana!
Blog Post: 008
Title: Actually Just Found OUT!!!
*&(*JFKJLJAHI!! - RAWR!!
So I just found out... that I DID loose work!! Yeah 4 freakin' pages of my bibliography!! I am furious!! and Think I am going to just leave it as be.
/sigh... life sucks... sometimes.
----------------------------------
So! Original Research! =D
I believe that through diverse, yet related research, one can come to a rational conclusion.
For instance, I looked up psychology, surrealism, psychoanalysis' of surrealism, fetishism, fashion, the history of corsets, psyhoanalysis' of cosetry, and images of corsets and surrealism. Many different realms for a cohessive thought. =)
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