Confessions of a research addict

By Suellen Green

I’m immersed in six subjects this semester; five of them need research. Fortunately, I love research. In 1989 at Monash university, I completed a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Japanese. Funny thing happened on the way to my degree; I accidently ended up with a double major. Turned out I had such a great time doing the research for my history subjects, that every year I’d choose history subjects, purely for the joy of it.

Now I’m studying writing and finding that my love of research has not changed, but the method certainly has! Or at least expanded—there was no internet when I got my BA. In 1989, I did most of my research in libraries: now a large proportion of it is done in my bed. (Yes, I know that is not OH&S compliant, but its just so cozy!)

While I am doing a lot of my research online, the library is far from dead as a research venue. I have borrowed many books, dvd’s and videos from the library here at St Albans campus. There is nothing like the feel of a book, and flipping through the pages is a lot more tactile and interactive than doing a search online.

Often research can be thrilling. I can remember back in the third year of my BA, when writing an essay on Aaron Sherritt and his involvement in the Kelly outbreak, finding some really amazing stuff. The State Library was great, but my best find was in the old Melbourne Police Station on Russell Street. I got handed a cardboard box and told to go for it. In that box I found all sorts of documents related to the Kelly outbreak; original hand written letters by arresting officers, court documents relating to Sherritt and the Kellys, among others. It was like being a detective.

As a kid I loved to read kid detective stories. I think that’s one of the reasons I love research so much, its like being a detective, searching for clues to help you write your masterpiece. And the best part is you can find those clues in the most unlikely of places.

Whether you are writing non-fiction, or fiction, the chances are high that you will need to do some research. Here are a couple of the more unexpected places you can find some great leads:

• Now the library is not exactly unexpected, but have you checked out the e-resource section of VU Library? I found some great e-books for all of my assignments when I did a search of the electronic resource database online. You can borrow electronic resources for 24 hours at a time and read them online or download them to your computer. If you need it after 24 hours, just borrow it again.

• Another great resource is Twitter. I set up a Twitter account as a part of the Writing for New Media class and was pleasantly surprised to find it was a lot more than just a social chatfest. Not only am I learning from people I am following, I am often tweeted links to great resources, especially for writing as I am following a few writers. I always retweet interesting links I receive so if you are on twitter, follow me @suellenswords, and I will send you some great stuff. One of the links I found through Twitter was the BBC archive. Go and see if some of your favourite authors are there. It’s fascinating. http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/writers/