How to research for articles,” it so happens is a loaded keyword search term and there are a couple of different ways to interpret that term.
Does it mean:
- how to look for articles that are already written? Or does it mean….
- how to find the research I need to write my own article?
There are blogs and there are ‘ezine’ articles that can help us with our research. Though blogs are interesting and quite informative, trade ezines (in your specific niche) are more vetted, in that they are usually researched for their quality and content before published. So, I like to go to trade ‘ezine’ research first, then to google for the general blog information.
The research for both of these queries is to enter the keyword “‘your trade’ ezine” into a search engine, preferably google as it is the most complete of all the search engines. You may have to sign up for some of the ezine sites that come up in order to receive all of the benefits they offer, but most have a pretty good search capabilities just by visiting the site.
Look for articles under all different titles and categories that you or your customers might look under to find the subject you are interested in. Be creative and generous with your keyword and key phrase research. You would be surprised under the titles that some real gems of information are hiding.
Also, I have recently found the following site. There are some really good research ideas there and I would recommend you look carefully at them to see if they can lead you to places on the internet where you can find research information you are looking for in finding information for your articles. Go to:
Go to: How To Find Anything On-line to see what I am talking about.
The above site touches on some scholarly research as well and uses MIT as an example, but you can do this kind of research with literally any university you want to. Just type in the university’s name and look for the library connection in the university site. There are usually pretty good instructions about how to use the libraries of these universities. Further down the above website there are suggestions for searching Specialized Websites that take you to History, Art, Science and you can search to your heart’s content.
There are many, many more suggestions for finding information for your articles. The real research comes in vetting the authors of that information. You might try googling the author’s name and see what comes up. If you make this a habit, you will find yourself developing a sixth sense for how to find what is valuable and what is just hype.
And interesting result of my researching for this post was to find an article in the MIT Library entitled:
Using Water Diaries to Conceptualize Water Use In Lusaka, Zambia
Diaries, it seems, are chock full of qualitative data on products, information, and projects of all kinds. You name a topic or a product and I would guess there is someone out there who has been keeping daily data on the use or research into that product or information or service. This is what’s known as qualitative research in that it is the record of someone’s experience with a product or their research into that product over a period of time.
If someone is going to take that much of their time to use and keep a record of something, they
- Must be very interested in it.
- Must be taking down quality information about the product.
So, I would recommend you go to any University or College Library or just Google the term:
Diaries for “your product or information” research.
For example, I Googled “Diaries for blender research” and came up with an interesting site that did some comparisons of Best Blenders Reviews, Guides, Tips and Recipes. Haven’t read the whole post, but it looks both interesting, informative and fairly complete.
Example 2: I Googled “Natural Remedies Diaries Research” and came up with a number of quite interesting sites. I would invite you to check it out. Try this approach for finding quality research for your article or blog and let me know what you think.
I became interested in reading the Water Diaries Article from MIT to see if there was any way that a Diaries approach could give me a different spin, twist or bend or just a viewpoint about my product that I hadn’t seen before.
As one of the comments in my blog about ‘Getting Exhausted Writing Content,” mentioned, we can get stuck and predictable about the way we write content. Our take on something is what makes us unique, yes, but we are infinitely creative creatures and can come up with infinite ways to speak about just about anything. We may need some creative input to do that, however. And it may be that the suggestions above can help us refresh that uniqueness that is in us.
Whether we know it or not, no matter what we are selling or promoting on the internet, even ourselves, our brands, we are all basically just writers after all. We have to communicate who we are and what we promote.
Ready To Start Writing?
I recommend visiting WA member Nathaniell’s site for tips on Writing Product Reviews of Stuff You Don’t Own
These may be ways to keep it fresh and interesting, on point, factual and creative.
Let me know what your research into diaries, ezines and blogs brings you.
email me at firstname.lastname@example.org
visit my website at http://www.writingqualitycontent.com
or leave a comment below.
Thank you and
All the best