Comments on: Making Choices in Research

By: Sayaka

Sayaka — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 15:42:41 +0000

For me, it is Kanji that really makes difference in my research strategy. It’s not only about aesthetics, but more logistical!

By: Brendan

Brendan — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 10:03:21 +0000

I woke up this morning with the same issues on my mind. Except I’ve got 50 odd years of 6x weekly issues (4-8 pages per issue!) to look through. Thankfully it’s only a few papersm but it’s still an impossible task. So I’ve taken to a combination of tactics. I generally skim the papers very quickly: for my topic at least, I find that if it didn’t make the main headline on page 1, it’s probably not worth worrying about. And, when I find a juicy reference from another secondary source, I usually call up that paper. I also have a spreadsheet timeline of important events, but I’ve found that hasn’t been a huge help. I gave up pretty quickly on the locked in a tower method: I’m currently locked in Poland, and looking to get out sooner rather than later!

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 06:33:35 +0000

I think it was Miriam Burstein (might have been Tim Burke) who suggested that you stop reading in an archive when you stop learning new things: when each document doesn’t add something different to your understanding, then you’re pretty well done.

Call it the “Saturation” model, I suppose.