#navigating research

[enlightenedfeline]

How to navigate researching things for your writing:

Research can be hard and you can often get swept away and forget what you were even looking for in the first place, in this post I'll share the process I like to use when I need to research something for my writing.

First off I'll start this post by saying that I am as unmotivated as someone can get when it comes to doing research for writing, and as a crime writer I need to research a lot of things.

1- A good start is always to narrow it down to exactly what you want to research, make your questions as specific as possible so you don't fall down a rabbit hole of looking at unnecessary information just to find what you want.

2- If you can't narrow it down or aren't sure specifically what you're looking for, do the opposite of what I stated above, make your question as short and general as possible, so you can get all the possible answers, and when you find the one that relates most closely to the topic you actually wanna research, use the information in it to create a very specific question.

3- Use the FUCK out of reddit, and quora too, although I find that as a crime writer, most of the sketchy information I actually want is on reddit and not anywhere else. Your answer probably isn't on google, especially not now that they're relying on AI, another good website for more history related stuff is ofc the infamous Wikipedia, but I personally haven't had to use it often. But seriously, Reddit, read all the relevant posts you can find because you will probably find the answer you want, and if you don't, asking the question yourself is always an option.

4- Interest and curiousity is good, but it won't help you if you're in the middle of a scene and get carried away. Ground yourself, find what you want and get out, if you read something and you're interested in knowing more, please just bookmark the tab and get back to your scene with your newfound answer.

5- Images are very very helpful in research, especially when describing weapons, just find yourself a labeled image on google and go crazy! Same thing applies to human anatomy, either images or visualizations work when you need them.

6- Sometimes, for more complex topics, you will not find one straight answer, not on reddit, quora, wikipedia, nowhere. You will need to put information together and fill in the gaps yourself, if you're in the middle of writing a scene when this happens do not stop to put the information together! Finish your scene with what information you have, correctness isn't important, set a time to do your research and put your answer together, and when you've finished that go back and edit the scene!

The final piece of advice I will leave you with is to just focus, as I just stated, correctness doesn't matter in the first draft of the scene, you can go back and fix it as many times as your little heart desires, but you absolutely cannot get back the flow you lost because you got distracted.

So focus, if you find what you need right away, great! If you don't, justs set time aside to do it later, what matters first and foremost is to get the information on the page and fix it later.

Maybe some of this advice will help, maybe it won't, either way, I hope this feline has enlightened you!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Joan McCarter at Daily Kos:

With all this attention on the dangerous, radical plan, more and more people are trying to find out what it’s all about. Navigator Research, a consortium of progressive polling firms, has the goods on how we should talk about it with friends and family, and what Democrats need to be saying about it on the stump as the election heats up. On Wednesday, Navigator released the third and final results from its latest survey about Project 2025. Conducted June 20-24, the survey found that the most salient and message about Project 2025 is that it “is an unprecedented, extreme Republican plan that will fundamentally alter the American government making Trump even more dangerous in a second term by granting him presidential powers like no president before him has ever had.” 

According to Navigator, the most effective messages focused on the impact rather than on political consequences. The message that worked best for Democrats and independents was that Project 2025 would "roll back and eliminate Americans’ constitutionally protected rights and freedoms," while the message that worked best for non-MAGA Republicans—i.e., Republican voters who did not self-identify as supporting the MAGA movement—was that it would "hurt hard-working American families and seniors." “Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats (87%), 7 in 10 independents (70%), and about half of non-MAGA Republicans (48%) believed it would have a negative impact on them and their families after exposure to Project 2025’s policies and messaging,” Navigator found.  There’s plenty in the authoritarian plan to worry Americans. It seeks to end no-fault divorce and  restrict access to birth control—even condoms! It demands cuts to Social Security—raising the retirement age from 67 to 70—and wants to privatize Medicare. Then there are the proposals to curtail food assistance, eliminate Head Start, restrict help to disabled veterans, and roll back overtime pay requirements for hourly workers.

A new poll from Navigator Research conducted between June 20th and 24th reveals that many parts of Project 2025 are very unpopular with the electorate.

[reality-detective]

Hmmm 🤔

[saltcxrcle]

hi guys!! ive missed you all so so much and im back for today to celebrate sam's birthday!! so feel free to send any asks about sammy and ill be posting a fic, smutty blurb, and a social media au soon!

but i won't be going through my notfis until im fully back from my hiatus bc i will be dipping out until the end of finals week and i don't want to crashout looking at them lol but trust i will be going through everything and stalking everyone's blogs to see what ive missed when i officially come back!

[mac33cheese]

Okay hear me out on this one, Saiki kusou having a mental breakdown and age regressing

I mean shape shifting into a kid and mentally age regressing, using his old diy robot toy as a comfort object

I imagine this break down being Post Meteor but it could really be after any traumatic event

And the breakdown is sorta from a realization that of he doesn't have his powers he can't stop crisis from happening (volcano, nendo time loop, meteor, ANY of the things he has to stop when he has those dreams followed by headaches, ect) but having his powers also gives him a very hard time (guilt of the valcano time loop, Akechi incident, and just the general struggles he shows that having his powers come with).

so he sorta breaks down really bad, and his resort? Age regression. Not necessarily healthy age regression at first but I feel like if this were to be something he uses more often then he would learn how to use this as a healthy way to cope. But let me explain why age regression (should add that I am not very educated on age regression, so please feel free to correct me on literally ANYTHING I say)

It's pretty clear saiki was happier as a kid, I mean not entirely but theres DEFINITELY a difference there. In my opinion he seemed a bit more carefree? That may not be the right way to explain it but I think you can get the picture. I think he would find comfort in how his mindset was during that time. I just feel this cope would work pretty well for him (although it's pretty ooc I think) but I think he wouldnt use it in a healthy way at first, I'm not sure how to explain it.

Anyways this is just an angst headcanon idea, age regression saiki gng

[az-is-back]

sometimes you see a project to adapt the mysterious cities of gold, and it never takes off (i think partly because no producer truly believes this could work and partly because the original is too iconic), but honestly? if the movie industry cared more about historical action / adventure plots, there would totally be a way to make a good old swashbuckler / quest for gold / sailor-turned-pirate movie that progressively reveals its status as a Mendoza-centric prequel.

[mollysunder]

I don't think I'll let go of the fact that way Arcane leaves off the conflict between Piltover and Zaun, isn't just wishful thinking, but deeply ignorant of the history they built this conflict around. In what period of history, especially what we consider modern history has a marginalized group or colony won any actual political rights or let alone independence by complying with the demands of their oppressors, by fighting in their wars?

And something like this can't be fixed with an extra season or two, it's practically a structural beam in the show's whole foundation.

[idon-twannabeperceived]

The thing with usamerican education is kinda annoying actually like

"omg the american education system failed me" *does nothing about it*... Like you do see that by doing that you are letting that system you hate be the only way you learn stuff ever, right?? it's not very useful to be aware that it sucks if you don't ever do anything to challenge the beliefs they taught you and learn the things they didn't teach you.

The thing has to go "the american education system failed me... so i'm gonna learn this stuff on my own". Nowadays you have access to so much information through the internet, it's not like it's hard to learn where a country is located, you don't even have to walk to the library anymore, just open your laptop or look it up on your phone, it's that easy.

And when it comes to the narratives taught in history class, i see people from other countries talking about it all the time, sharing articles, videos, pictures, movies, books, etc. You just have to listen for once, and then you can do research on the stuff you didn't know or what to learn more about.

[historysurvivalguide]

Cylinder Dial

Sometimes also called a Pillar Dial or a Shepard Dial

This strange looking device is actually a portal sundial! The metal arm is the “gnomon” (the part of the sundial that casts a shadow) and the body is carved with different curved horizontal lines for times and vertical columns for months

This sundial is set for the 37th parallel north (37.3 degrees North latitude) which includes places like the island of Sicily, Greece, as well as places in Syria, Iran, China, and through the center of the United States. This kind of information can make it possible to determine where this device was originally made or at least where it was intended to be used 🔎

Helpfully, it also just so happens it is “inscribed on the dial corresponds with that of Catania in Sicily” so this device was likely made to operate in Sicily

(A very simple) Mystery solved!

[ethosiab]

firefox i love you. thank you for this beautiful tab explorer. i will never say anything bad about you ever again.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dan Pfeiffer at The Message Box:

We are in the midst of a big, vituperative debate within the Democratic Party about Harris’s campaign message. Was she insufficiently populist? Too moderate? Not moderate enough? Should she have talked inflation more? What about abortion and democracy? I could go on forever. The chatter is endless. There is no question that the Democratic message needs work. Voters who supported us for years left us for Trump. We considered ourselves the party of the working class, and the working class voted for the other guy. Clearly, we have a message (and a policy) problem. However, a new post-election study shows that Democrats have more than a message problem. We have a message delivery problem. The voters who decided the election simply weren’t hearing what Democrats were saying. Democrats at every level — from elected officials to communications staffers to activists posting about politics online — should read this election exit survey of 5000 voters from Navigator Research.

Swing Voters Don’t Consume Traditional News

Trump didn’t do a single legacy media interview for the last month of the campaign. He didn’t sit down with a cable network. He attended no roundtables with reporters or sit downs with local TV anchors in key markets. He backed out of interviews with 60 Minutes, CNBC, and NBC News. Trump also turned down a primetime CNN townhall in the final weeks. Instead, he talked to Joe Rogan and other political podcasters. It paid off.

Polling before and after the election showed Harris performing well with voters who consume the most news, and conversely, Trump running up big margins with those who consume the least. However, the Navigator story offers more detail on the media diets of the voters who decided the elections. The study focuses on two types of voters — swing voters and new Trump voters. Swing voters are people who didn’t rule out voting for either candidate from the start and new Trump voters are people who voted for Trump in 2024 but didn’t vote for him in 2020. This last group includes people Trump brought into the electorate and those who switched from Biden to Trump (There is overlap between the two groups).

What’s even more surprising is that swing and new Trump voters are most likely to get their news from social media. Very few of them are getting news from legacy media. Only 16% of swing voters watch MSNBC and only 15% get their news from national newspapers. Think of all of the time spent fretting about New York Times headlines and stories — none of the voters who were on the fence ever saw them. It was just an internal conversation among people who decided to vote against Donald Trump years ago.

[...]

The Podcast Election

In the runup to and aftermath of the election, a number of observers referred to 2024 as the “podcast election.” While a little oversimplified, that designation made sense. Other than the debate, the two most high-profile media moments were the Rogan and Call Her Daddy interviews. While Harris did several podcasts, Trump made podcasts the central focus of his strategy. Unsurprisingly, according to Navigator Research, Trump won swing voters who listen to podcasts by 31 points.

While the polls show that only 16% of swing voters get their news from podcasts, it seems that podcasts were particularly influential in their choice. This makes sense for two reasons. First, listeners tend to trust podcast hosts more than any other media figures because of the intimacy of the medium. Second, podcast clips particularly those from Rogan and Alex Cooper, the host of Call Her Daddy, tend to get a lot of engagement on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Even people who don’t subscribe to a particular podcast (or any podcast) were likely to see some of these interviews. As a podcast co-host myself, I am undeniably biased about the importance of podcasts. However, long-form audio is a growing force in political media Democrats need a better, more compelling story to tell voters. We also need new, more populist policies that address people’s dissatisfaction with the economy and the political system. But even if we solve that problem and introduce the perfect message, it won’t matter if no one hears it. Fixing our problem begins with understanding why so few people heard what we had to say in this last election.

Dan Pfeiffer wrote a solid column on why the Democratic Party is getting their butts kicked in the messaging war.

Swing voters and voters who picked Trump in 2024 that voted Biden or another candidate in 2020 and/or Clinton, Johnson, or another candidate in 2016, per Navigator Research data conducted between October 31st and November 9th, largely get their news from social media or other nontraditional news outlets.

[pynkhues]

first of all, thank you so much for sharing your take on the rebecca/iwtv parallel. rebecca is one of my fave books growing up and the metas i've seen so far have always rubbed me the wrong way. and i totally agree that there's a strong tendency in the fandom to water down the loustat dynamic into a gender binary (as evidenced by that anon with the accusatory tone even tho they explicitly headlined their msg as a race issue lol). anyway, i mainly wanted to say that I love your take on the agency vs autonomy question, bc i've always thought that one of the biggest and perhaps most controversial adaptive changes in the show, lestat dropping louis in s1, was precisely hannah/rolin's attempt to address lestat's lack of autonomy in the books, which to me was a brilliant move. but it also led some of the lestat-critical (or straight-up hating tbh) part of the audience to accuse the s2 writing of 'defanging' him, aka having things happen to him and being powerless to fight back, which, as you perfectly summarized, is exactly what happened in the books. and i think it can easily be read as one of the weaknesses of anne's storytelling (i did when I first read the books years ago). and for me, the drop (and lestat's subsequent guilt) reinjected some autonomy into lestat's arc, and was also very onbrand of him to commit such a horrific act stemming from rage, heartbreak, (and fundamentally) love that will forever impact his dynamic with louis. so i'm very happy with how the writers have balanced this issue so far, and very excited to see what they'll do in s3, and of course would always love to hear more of your thoughts on it.

(x)

You're very welcome, and thank you! Really interesting that you read Lestat dropping Louis as reinjecting some autonomy into Lestat's arc! I hadn't thought of it that way, but I think you could be right particularly now with the shifting context of their fight and the violence that preceded Lestat's act of brutality.

It's been interesting re-reading TVL lately and getting to the scene where Lestat badly beats Armand after getting triggered with memories of Magnus after Armand forcibly drinks from him. It made me wonder how much that scene informed the way Rolin and Hannah wrote the drop? It's of course not the same - Armand and Lestat have a very different power dynamic, especially at that point, to Lestat and Louis - but I wonder if it was also a way to both depict Lestat's very masculine and powerful temper, but also his knee jerk trigger point as a traumatised character? Both are so central to TVL and QOTD in particular, so to depict that in an intimate relationship early on in hte series' run is interesting to think about!

[reading-lawrence]

We dressed in our cleanest to go and call on him. Auda wore the splendours he had bought at Wejh: a mouse-coloured greatcoat of broadcloth with velvet collar, and yellow elastic-sided boots: these below his streaming hair and ruined face of a tired tragedian!

Seven Pillars of Wisdom, chapter 41

They've been in the desert for a week and they packed light for a two-month hike; I really want to know what this lot considers their "cleanest" clothes.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

every new doctor to their future/past self

[agapestricken]

introducing a new concept for you all: anastasiy being pretty much the only one out of all of my characters that only swears on very rare occasions because he's a dad who's child is only seven years old, so he's gotten into the habit of replacing swear words with something else instead, BC he doesn't want to swear around his baby girl (,:

but this also means that whenever ana DOES swear... he's either very angry at someone and they may or may not be screwed, he's in a lot of pain, or he's absolutely bamboozled to the point where he can't say anything else. + so you know that something serious is going down if anastasiy does it haha

[inmemcrum]

HANG ON, HANG ON.

WAIT JUST A MINUTE.

Okay, y'all - I'm just getting back into Bleach. How am I just learning that Kubo himself admitted Aizen feared Starrk? This is what happens when you've been out of a series for so long and can't remember things. I honestly just need to read the manga again and actually catch up because I've missed a lot.