Suggestions for research tools?

[edburdett]

When I was a college student I had access to Galileo http://www.galileo.usg.edu/welcome/?Welcome. I've been know to use Questia at http://www.questia.com as well though it's a wee bit expensive.

I'm interested in what kind of resources other writers use.... Ye olde public library? Unreliable Wikipedia?

I'm also interested in what sorts of tools others use to organize, cite, etc. Stuff like Zotero http://www.zotero.com...

[shadowwalker]

I use Wikipedia as a starting point, in that it gives me ideas of what to look for from more reputable sources. (It also acts as a filter, because if I see the same thing on another site, I know to disregard the whole site.) Depending on what I'm researching, I'll look for journals or other "expert" sites, or I'll look for blogs or other ways of contacting people individually.

I should add, I'm not a good "face-to-face" researcher, so while it's very good to be able to meet with or call people for info, I much prefer finding a contact email addie. That can often result in more detailed info and easier exchange of questions/answers, as people don't have to rush or set up an appointment, etc, and if you think of something later on, just shoot them another email to be answered at their discretion.

[mammamaia]

my first stop is google...

while i will often check out what wikipedia has to say, i never rely solely on what i find there, as it's notoriously unreliable due to the info submitters being just ordinary folk and no vetting done on authenticity of the material... however, it's not a bad place to get a start on finding reliable sources down at the bottom of the page...

other places you can go for info are of course your local library and online libraries' reference departments... both the library of congress and the british library have excellent, extremely helpful ones... and they're free!

another rich source of need-to-know stuff is people... if you're writing about a hospital, you can ask nurses and even orderlies what goes on there... same for crime-based writing and cops, as well as civilians who work in the public protection sphere... folks like this can be interviewed in person, or asked for input in the online forums you'll find devoted to all walks of life...

same goes for info on diseases, or anything else you can imagine... everything has a forum/website now... i doubt you can come up with any subject that doesn't...

[stscam]

If you know some basic things about your subject, newspaper and magazine archives are really good sources. Most states have free historical newspaper sites (this one is for California: http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cdnc). And Cornell and the University of Michigan have coop sites titled "Making of America" that have a whole bunch of 19th century American magazines (Harper's, Atlantic, Scribner's, Century). Find Cornell here: http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/m/moa/browse.html and UM here: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moajrnl/browse.journals/. The Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov has digitized a substantial collection of personal papers, historical photographs, and veterans' reminiscences. LOC also has a newspaper archive (that ties into the state sites). For tips on using these resources you might check out Finding Stuff at http://www.steventrentsmith.blogspot.com. Many newspaper archives are fee-based (NY Times, London Times, Washington Post). Some let you buy one story at a time, others require a subscription. The same is true for some magazines. Google has a few periodicals - like Life - here: http://books.google.com. Good luck and have fun.