Writing About the U.S.

Setting a novel in the United States often requires some research into history. Similarly, a nonfiction piece may need comparative data from a previous era. Everyone knows the U.S. Library of Congress (LOC) is probably the largest repository of such information. But not everyone can travel to Washington, D.C., to perform the necessary research. Fortunately the digital age rescues us -- and we don't even need a special membership or password to access the LOC collections.

Visiting the electronic version of the library can be as daunting as paying it a visit in person. Where to go? What to ask for? Fortunately intermediaries, like the Digital Library Federation maintain a registry of the digitized collections in the LOC. This isn't just a list of names, however. Clicking on the Full Description link takes you to a page of information about the collection that will help you determine if it's likely to contain the data you are seeking. Additionally, the description page contains sections on associated projects and related collections. In some cases, alternative access URLs are provided, handy if the main link is down for any reason.

You can also search A Writer's Edge for other posts on research.

Writing Watchdog Journalism

CONTEST ENTRIES MUST BE RECEIVED BY JULY 10th!

Do you know the differences among a Quit Claim, Trust and Grant deeds? How about cross-checking with a DEF 14A proxy statement? Where would you go to find information about these documents? Public records. Everything that happens in U.S. life that has to do with "the public" or involves public funding is supposed to be recorded; we all have rights to view or obtain this information. That's what Danielle Cervantes, an analyst for the San Diego Union-Tribune, told our writer's group last month. Cervantes is part of the paper's Watchdog & Projects Team. She functions as a "computer-assisted reporting specialist" who crunches the numbers and cross-checks data to back up muck-raking reporters. One of those news-breaking stories won the paper a Pulitzer recently.

Cervantes explained that computers and public records are the tools of watchdog journalism these days. When reporters want to ferret out the truth about major issues, institutions or individuals, they turn to the computer analysts to verify tips and backup stories.

The only exception to the availability of public records are law enforcement cases. If you want to investigate a story in your area, it helps to have a handle on the names for the kinds of records you might want to review. Cervantes provided a list of terms commonly used for public records. While some of these might be specific to California, your state or country will have something similar. If you know the definition, you'll be able to discover the name applicable in your area.

I'm making the Public Record Terms document one of the free articles available on the Writing Help page here at A Writer's Edge. In the future I'll post more about this kind of writing and more resources to help those interested.

Writers' Online Research Resource

The Gale Group, people who put out useful directories and other reference materials usually found in libraries, offers an interesting online service, AccessMyLibrary - News, Research, and Information that Libraries Trust. If you have an account with a member library (only in the US, sorry), you can research topics from newspapers, magazines, newsletters, journals and other publications your library holds. MyAccess claims to cover 29,614,182 articles from A Friend Indeed to Zap2It.

When you find an article, you're presented with a snippet of the beginning, which ranges from a few lines to a couple of paragraphs. To read the full article requires selecting a library you belong to (it might even be your public school's) and entering, well, I'm not sure what. They say "bar code" but present a text box. Because the San Diego Public Library is part of a different online catalog, and that's the only library I belong to, I can't test out this part myself. I'm guessing the box wants your library card number. You can also have a password for some libraries. An alternative way to see articles is by signing up for a 30-day free trial membership.

Using this type of service rather than just doing a general search of the web ensures that the reference sources have already been vetted by authorities (librarians or information specialists). This provides you with more reliable and dependable results, especially important if you're a freelancer and need to send an editor a list of sources for an article that you write.

20 Essential Writing References

By now most people know my stand on citing Wikipedia as a source or reference: as Borat said, "not so good". Sure it's fine for general knowledge. Consult it to get an idea of what a topic is about or for leads to authoritative resources. I was happy to see my stand echoed by Gideon Addington in his post at Mindful Ink:

Whenever I first begin a project I almost always go and overview it through Wikipedia. It’s a great introduction to a subject, also connecting you easily to other related ideas, people and places.

He continues on to list Beyond Wikipedia: 20 References You Can't Do Without. They are "mostly resources anyone can use (with a couple of notable exceptions)." Two of them you may need to access through a school or library account are JSTOR for journals and the Oxford English Dictionary. (Regular readers know of my lust for my own OED or subscription.)

In a followup column elsewhere, Books on the Web, these websites are listed as good places to find textbook references:

1. Classics in the History of Psychology
2. The Online Books Page
3. eBrary.com
4. Google Books
5. Project Gutenberg
   

That last reference reminded me of a recent question on a forum. Someone in an isolated part of the world wanted to research a particular topic but had limited access to the Internet. That's a tough one. Can't get to a library, bookstores, or online; presumably can't afford to buy reference material. What to do? My advice would be: something else. Forget "write what you know". Write what you can research. Even if you know about a topic, you still need to be able to cite sources.

Finding Famous People

Writers often need to contact celebrity and authority figures. Sometimes it's for an interview, quotes, or other content-related reasons. Other times, they're looking for a way to obtain a testimonial, blurb, or maybe a preface for a book. One method of research is to subscribe to WhoRepresents.com. Here are some tips from John Kremer's Book Marketing Tip of the Week newsletter on finding someone famous:

1. Google them. This is the simplest way. Generally you can find an address for someone famous or important simply by Googling them.

2. Use one of the phone book services on the Internet. You can Google "phone book services" to locate some of these. You may have to try more than one to find the person you are looking for. That has been my experience.

3. Ask your friends. You'd be surprised how many of your friends know people that you would also want to know. The six degrees of separation rule is an exaggeration. My experience is that if you are at all active in any group, you are probably three people away from anyone you want to reach. Ask and keep asking until the right person hears your question and answers with an introduction.

Incidentally, you can email John and sign up for his newsletter.

Amazon's Best Books of 2007

At this time of year, traditional material for regular nonfiction writers are either "Top or Best ..." or "Resolutions". I try to live just one day at a time, instead of proclaiming annual resolutions . If I am in a change process, that's about as long as I can focus or handle. I do, however, believe in setting goals and offered a system for reaching them last month.

I wasn't going to give in to the "tops" tug until I ran across this page at Amazon: Amazon.com: Best of 2007: Books. It is most handy because in addition to the editors' top picks (with no explanation of the selection process), Amazon lists Customer Favorites, the "100 topselling books on Amazon.com during 2007. (Ranked according to customer orders through October. Only books published for the first time in 2007 are eligible.)" At last, a measure with a metric rather than whimsical evanescent criteria. "Top selling" I can understand, even if Amazon has contracted the words into one. There's still time for you to vote on that page for your favorite from among the top 25 best sellers of the year.

Back on the main page of Best Books of 2007, bonuses are the breakdowns of Customer Favorites into 30 "top ten" categories, (find the list in the right column). That's enough sections to enable market research for anyone considering writing a book. What's more, you can also study similar rankings for the last sevan years! (See box at the bottom of the left column.)

Find Data on the Internet

So often I see questions in chats, forums and message boards asking, "Where can I find information on ... ?" Fill in the blank with whatever is puzzling you. My flippant response is "Did you Google it?" I realize what follows can be a tedious process, unless you know how to craft specific searches and use Google's special features. It would help to know where to find information on the Internet from more direct sources. That's where Robert Niles come in. The Pasadena journalist's statistics page has long been my favorite resource to recommend for understanding and using numbers, especially from research reports. Now he also has a page on Finding Data on the Internet. (Data is the more academic term for information.)

Rather than presenting a course on how to do Internet research, Niles has gathered a list of the most credible sources of information from Agriculture to Safety, with "Other" and "Basics" categories thrown in, covering more general resources. These will get you started in the right direction.

Get the Skinny on Zips

ZIPskinny is the best extraction of data from the 2000 U.S. Census that I've come across. If you know the zip code of a neighborhood you'd like to research, just plug it into the search box on the first page. Alternatively, you can select the state, then a city, and the program will pull up information for the zip code of the geographic center of the city, along with a Google map of the area. Note to Zipeople: it would be great if you could make the map a display the zip code for the other areas a visitor can maneuver to, and then with a click, get the data for that different neighborhood.

The information shown for a particular zip code includes demographics of race, age, and gender; a comparison chart with other nearby areas displaying several different socioeconomic factors (education, marital status, etc.); and the same for the single code with additional vertical bar charts showing six factors broken out by ranges. Two other features allow you to find the top 100 zips in the country and by state for several limited factors and a system to query for a comparison of up to 20 different codes.

I can see this working for both fiction and nonfiction writers and in two directions: either finding information about a geographic area you're writing about or finding a type of area to write about. It would take some time to search on several factors because the functionality is limited for now, but hey, it's free!

Research Shortcuts for Writers

Everybody loves shortcuts, right? Here's an interesting collection of them: StartSpot. The home page links to resources for finding information more quickly on books, movies, employment, genealogy, charities, food, government, headlines, homework, libraries, museums, people, shopping and travel. "So what?" you may say, "Any search engine does that." But this isn't a search engine, it is human-edited lists for specific purposes. They say:

Our editorial team carefully evaluates and selects the best, most relevant and most interesting online resources for a topic, then organizes the information to make it easily accessible.

Take a look at BookSpot, for example. Glancing down the menu in the left column, it appears that most anything you'd like to find is covered. When you click on a specific topic, you don't find references to everything (and have to wade your way through the dross). The editors have chosen the most useful links to present to visitors, cutting down on the time it takes to do the research.

Blogs for Aspiring Writers

Bear with me for another day of conflagration crisis mode. I'm still in my home, but the threat to my community is somewhat less as the weather conditions improve a bit.

Here's another post about a compilation of resources for writers. I'm not certain who runs the Online Education Database, but I discovered A Writer's Edge listed as number four on its 150 Useful, Educational, and Inspirational Blogs for Aspiring Writers.

What do they say about this place? "Write, write correctly, write anything!". Well, thanks for the plug, OEDB folks, back atcha!

Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites

Last week we looked at 100 More Tools, and today it is Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites. These are a gift from PC Magazine. Some are humorous, others technical and limited to a particular system or gizzie, but many appear to have the potential for being a resource for writers, especially for researching. Now, I must admit, my favorite is I Can Has Cheezburger?, but after the harrowing time I spent yesterday on the verge of evacuation, I feel entitled to all the comic relief I can find.

About the fires? Oh. Officials say the worst may be yet to come. Stay tuned. I'm trying to hang loose. Thanks for every comment and personal email. I'm still in my home, still threatened, and there's no comfortable place to go (all hotels full).

Research Old Magazines

I was especially happy to find OldMagazineArticles.com when I read that "It is a primary source website and is designed to serve as a reference for students, educators, authors, researchers, dabblers, dilettantes, hacks and the merely curious." I seem to resemble that statement. The home page contains an index and a simple search engine, and you can also browse by subject or view recently-added articles. The articles are freely available in .PDF format, almost exactly as they originally appeared. If you register, you can receive email updates on new articles added, even by your categories of interest. The site also offers an RSS feeds by subject area.

Specialize for Freelance Success

At conferences, panels of experienced writers are often asked, "If you have just one piece of advice to give beginning writers, what is it?" I think mine would be: specialize. I wish someone had told me that when I was starting out; however, it would have been somewhat like the advice rendered in the movie The Graduate: ("plastics") a gamble. At that time, it paid to be a utility writer, capable of covering any topic. Who knew the field would become so crowded (thanks to the Watergate scandal which glorified writing as a career).

One reason I suggest that specialization leads to success is that freelance writers must have high production rates. If you already have the knowledge base on a particular subject, you are far ahead in the research department. Every time you write about your topic, you don't have to learn about the background or the history of it. You save that time to focus on extending your knowledge, keeping up with the far edges of the field. The time saved means you can write your pieces faster and get out more of them than you would if you had to repeat in-depth research for each one.

Another reason to specialize is to become an expert by way of a body of published work. This applies to fiction writers as well as journalists. Once you're considered an expert, more income opportunities open up. Public speaking and other types of appearances, teaching, publishing books and subsidiary materials, consulting, testimony as an expert witness--these are just a few that come to mind.

Specialization is also the way the publishing world operates at this time. Think of all the stress on niche on the web, in magazines and ezines. Carve out a corner of the world, we're told, and make it your own. Instead of versatility in jumping from one subject to another as a writer, the skills required now are dancing among the various media in this transition phase between the all paper world and the (maybe) all electronic one to come. Competition is horrendous. Make yourself the "go to guy", dependable, reliable and knowledgeable in one area that you can mine for success. I'd suggest something in science, but you have to please yourself, too. Your specialty will become part of your identity, so you'd better enjoy it.

Find Public Records Online

Whether you're performing research on contemporary matters or searching for historical information, Wendy Boswell has provided an invaluable guide, Technophilia: Where to find public records online. The article is part of her Technophilia series for the Lifehacker website. She explains "items like birth certificates, marriage and divorce information, obituaries and licenses on the web." Be sure to read the many comments to this piece in which readers add to the lore. Even if you're not in the market for such sleuthing at the moment, you might want to search on your own name to see what is on the record about you ... sort of like your annual credit report check-up.

OSU Free Books Online

Seeing the flooding in Ohio featured on NBC news this morning reminded me of the interesting reference website I found at the The Ohio State University Press. Its Open Access Initiative makes over 70 books available for download in .PDF format. The site claims:

All titles available this way, whether old or new, have gone through the exact same peer review process as our printed books. Any book that carries our imprint--no matter what medium is being used--has been approved by our Editorial Board after a thorough vetting process.

The collection spans the gamut of subjects. I'm not sayin' that this is necessarily a place to start research (although you could), but it is a resource to check for a free copy of a primary reference.

Researching on the Web

Johns Hopkins University's Sheridan Libraries offers help for evaluating information you may run across on the web:

All information, whether in print or by byte, needs to be evaluated by readers for authority, appropriateness, and other personal criteria for value. If you find information that is "too good to be true", it probably is. Never use information that you cannot verify. Establishing and learning criteria to filter information you find on the Internet is a good beginning for becoming a critical consumer of information in all forms. "Cast a cold eye" (as Yeats wrote) on everything you read. Question it. Look for other sources that can authenticate or corroborate what you find. Learn to be skeptical and then learn to trust your instincts.

This warning/admonition is especially true for writers who search for accurate information, whether it be for background on a tale of medieval madness or an article on carbon nanotubes. The article excerpted is a good starting point if you're just learning how to use the Internet to find information for your writing projects.

History of English Words for Hacks

Following links and hints in others' works led to the Online Etymology Dictionary. This is not the place to go for definitions of words, but for their history, to find the earliest uses. For example, did you know that "hack writer is first recorded 1826, though hackney writer is at least 50 years earlier"? It's an overflowing treasure box for language lovers like me. This dictionary was compiled by Douglas Harper, using an impressive set of reference materials. The site has a limited search engine and an alphabetical index to get you to the area of the word you're interested in. There's also an impressive list of links to websites about various languages and etymology, some experts and diversions.

Writers Internet Research Resources

A generation that can't remember life without PCs, the World Wide Web, and/or Wikipedia may never know the joy of browsing through a real life encyclopedia. The venerable Encyclopedia Britannica (full or Junior set) was once considered the last word in reference material. For some of us, it was the first or only resource we used. At the library. Teachers accepted its citations without question. I'm sure plagiarism was rampant then, too. Now students are taught to use the Internet. Thanks to projects digitizing the contents of great libraries and journals making issues available online, soon electronic research will be king. For some, it is already, with their first and last stop the Wikipedia. It was probably the first attempt to offer knowledge on the web, but unfortunately many users don't realize it is a very volunteer effort and quite vulnerable to manipulation. Even the managers have had to publish a disclaimer, but I wonder how many people even see it or read it. The general disclaimer takes pains to point out twice, "Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here" before the ubiquitous C.Y.A. statements.

Store Research Information

It sometimes seems that the newest generation of writers knows how to research topics only with an Internet connection. Some think the Wikipedia is an authority to cite. If you're working on something important and for public consumption (eventually), you need to return to the information's roots. That means finding its source in print if you can. For academic research, often the original source is the only acceptable version to cite. You might not have an actual copy of it, but your digital one should contain all the sourcing information (title, authors, date published, location, page numbers, editors and perhaps in what other publication).

In all your other researching, copy to disk or print out versions of the pages you might use. My rule of thumb in journalism was to have about ten times as many facts as made it into the story. You want the data safe in case you can't find it again (you did remember to capture the pages' URLs, too, didn't you? They aren't always obvious, nor do they always appear in the data.) Pages often "disappear" for a variety of reasons. Last week I tried to write about a well-known British author's views on critics, only to find the Guardian Unlimited had removed both parts of her article in a spat over copyright ... and I haven't found a free archived image yet!

You also want to be able to verify the accuracy as well as the existence and credibility of your sources for others. When printing out pages, set the page layout software to display the date, name of the site and the URL. Be certain you have the same information for any data saved on disk Even if you've emailed it to yourself, send yourself another message with the referring documentation.

Defining Events for Characters

Each generation feels defined by certain events that take place during formative years, often the 20s. That's when we emerge from childhood and decide who we are and what we stand for. Often the events are cataclysmic, jolting us out of our adolescent fantasies, forcing us to grow up. It can be important in fiction to understand which generation your characters belong to, whether they embrace or reject their defining moments. For me, an advance guard for the Baby Boomers, it was the murder of President Kennedy, the U.S. space program and the Viet Nam war. For my parents, born in 1915 and 1917, it was the Great Depression and World War II. People coming of age after I did, might respond to drugs, technology, 9/11; and in cultures other than North American, to different happenings. Be sure to include or at least consider your characters' defining events as you build their worlds. One way to research this aspect would be to interview a group of people similar to the character in question. Ask in a focus group, "What was the most important event that shaped your life?" Let them talk for a while, to disagree and discuss, and eventually a consensus will emerge about the top happenings.

Finding Information

One of the basic puzzlers for beginning writers seems to be how to find out--anything! They flock to the forums and message boards that I visit and pour out their pleas: I need to know if I can copyright this title. How would a family-owned business be divided among heirs? Can doctors transplant brains? More seasoned writers who try to help them by handing them the answers are not doing these budding novelists and journalists a favor.

Beginners need to learn how to perform research. The questions never end in both fiction and nonfiction writing. Professional journalists have an advantage, because a large part of their training concerns getting answers or finding information. If one of them switches to writing short stories or a novel, he or she already knows how to research any topic. Another source of research training is in your basic education, often in English courses where writing essays or papers is expected. Good graduate programs are all about research, and what you learn applies to discovery for entertainment writing as well a academia. If you have no such background to draw on, try asking for help from the information specialist at your public library. Notice the process and resources used to find the answer to your question. Also ask about the availability of research advice or classes.

Finding Phrases and Meanings

The actual title of the index (home) page for Phrases.org website is this unwieldy list: Meanings and origins of sayings and phrases List of sayings English sayings Idiom definitions Idiom examples Idiom origins List of idioms Idiom dictionary Meaning of idioms. Looks like an SEO specialist gone wild! It offers several interesting and useful tools for writers, including:

1. The meanings and origins of over 1,200 English sayings, phrases and idioms
2. Bulletin board with a forum and searchable archive of more than 50,000 postings about sayings and phrases
3. The currently most popular phrases
4. A phrase of the week you can receive by email or RSS
5. A list of popular fallacies about phrases
6. Basic search engine for phrases on the site and web

The list of The Nonsense Nine most popular phrases about which they receive bogus source information is fascinating. I found myself having fallen prey to one or more of them. Think you know the origin and/or true meaning of these?

1. The whole nine yards
2. Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
3. POSH
4. The full monty
5. The real McCoy
6. Scot free
7. Golf
8. Raining cats and dogs
9. Dead ringer

Google Notebook

Now that the nasty Blogger people arbitrarily jerked my blog into the latest version of the software, I can no longer send clips to my account from other wesites with the "Send to" function in the Google Toolbar. Time to take another look at Google Notebook. A reference at Google Librarian Central announces the graduation of the productivity tool from Google Labs to a full-fledged writer's aide that can:

* Clip useful information. You can add clippings of text, images and links from web pages to your Google Notebook without ever leaving your browser window.

* Organize your notes.You can create multiple notebooks, divide them into sections, and drag-and-drop your notes to stay organized.

* Get access from anywhere. You can access your Google Notebooks from any computer by using your Google Accounts login.

* Publish your notebook. You can share your Google Notebook with the world by making it public.

I was more impressed with the testimonial given by Nancy Sharoff, a teacher in Ellenville, New York:

I'm using [Google Notebook] as my online notebook. I'm finding it particularly useful right now in conjunction with Google Groups. Since I receive posts in digest form and there's no way to single out a single post to refer to later, I simply copy/paste the post into the appropriate section of my notebook; things I want to look into further go into my 'Check It Out' section.

[resource]