Writing
Tips Articles
•
Research
Using a
research process to streamline your writing
Information is the basis of all writing. Information that
you have researched, learned, sorted and organized into
your own unique way of looking at it is the reason to
express what you know.
It's always useful and can be critically important to look
at what's already available and then make your expression
new, unique and better than what has already been produced.
Research is a necessary step whether for a novel, college
thesis or self help book.
Here's the process I recommend to conduct internet based
research in a time effective way.
Pick a subject or target. Come up with 3 or so words that
"make sense" as words that describe, define or frame the
subject or area.
Use some of these below resources to begin in-depth
research in your subject:
1. Keyword Map - Put your words
in here and generate more related words to build more
ideas and possible research vectors.
Note and even copy all the words you get. Look at the
websites that are listed for your words.
What ideas do these extra words and websites spawn? Write
them down or record your thoughts while you are
researching. What do you like and not like? What's done
well? How might you do it better? Capture all the
impressions and the quick "thought pops" you get...
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For extra bonus points those words can go into:
~ Google Keyword Tool -
Google gets about 200 million searches per day... they
estimate 100 million of those searches are unique. As
people get more skilled on using the web, the searches
are changing.
You will have to sign up for an Adwords account - it's
free!
(Then you can use all the cool stuff they got's at the
google... weeeee!)
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2. Now go to Amazon.com and put those same
keywords into a search for books, etc. Dig into the
subject in as thorough a fashion as you need. There
probably are books, audio, video and maybe even
magazines, articles, studies and reports.
3. Take the interesting books and authors and research them
further with your favorite search engine. Drill as deep as
you need and look for surprises. Is the book listed in
Google Books? You can read
parts for free there if it is.
4. Is it hot? Google Trends is a powerful
research tool.
4.a What blogs are there on the subject? Search 'em out.
Technorati
5. If you are searching to build more of a business idea...
How many affiliate programs exist in Clickbank?
Choose the appropriate market and see how many people are
selling products and ebooks in that niche. None? Not a
promising market. A lot more research is needed. A few is a
good indicator. If there are lots, that indicates it’s a
profitable and competitive market.
A trip through this amount of research can take a day or
three, depending on how deep and/ or distracted you get.
Allow this research to provide you with more confidence
that you either know a lot about this subject or can
quickly learn it!