How to Do Research

Ever wondered how exactly I make the magic happen in my deep-dive videos, like Dionysus, Aphrodite and King Arthur? Wonder no longer! Today I'm dishing out all the answers in this extra special bonus video I made in three days!
We've… we've been REALLY busy, guys. March is CRAZY.

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[iron_Will]

“Maybe this process isn’t as intuitive as I thought” would be a great autobiography title

[jimothyhasleftthechat]

What I gathered from this video: Red is a genius and this channel deserves it's own wikipedia page

[Lycaon]

I mean, that's the point of wikipedia. It's an encyclopedia. It's a hub for citations and context, but it isn't a source. Because that's simply not how it's supposed to be used. Its own creator said so.

[jasonports]

YEEESSSS! Young history student here: this is how I write my essays.
A few extra tips:
1. when looking for sources, dont just search in the online catalog of your library, but go there (in person, yes) and go to the shelves containing books related to your topic. Open every book that look maybe of use, immediately go to the summary or the contents section and see if this book is useful.You can easily contextualize and dont worry: you'll get better and faster at it after a while.
2. When writing down notes, use summaries or quotations of the thing that include key words and use the reference option to refer to the source. During the research you can open the word file and use the ctrl-f function to search the document, essentially turning it into your own personal little wikipedia page.
3. Don't underestimate secondary sources. Sure, the primary source is very important, but a lot of things (symbolism, wordplay in a different language, references, context) cannot be understood by someone who has only just entered a specific academic field. The further you go back in time, and the less you know about the everyday life of the maker of the source, the more important it is that you use secondary sources that can help you understand the text.

Loved the video, and Im hoping people can benefit from the tips. If you have any tips for me, please leave a comment, I'm still in Uni so I could use the help.

[geraldgreen]

"I'll remember this, I don't need to write it down" Red you are apparently my college spirit animal.

[johnmanole]

0:34 Wikipedia
1:52 Hunting down Sources!
2:31 Primery and secondary sources
5:25 Bury yourself in notes
6:25 Break out the tumbtacks and string!

[dclinks]

I literally had a class about this last week in uni. You just summarised a 3 hour class in 7 minutes and improved on it. Congrats.

[lenmaster]

Another tip that my highschool English teacher taught me was once you find a good source, make a bibliography citation for it and assign it a color. Any time you copy down part of the source, do so in that color so you can keep track of the source. Also, make an "in-text citation" for it and put it with each piece of information with the page number. Whenever you summarize or write down your own thoughts about it, write it in black so you know those are your words, not something from a source. I had several college professors question my sources because they "seemed too thorough" only to go through them and see that they were all right.

[kereminde]

"Everything has a wikipedia page (except for us)..."


It's only a matter of time now, you know. But even better, you do have a TV Tropes wiki page.

[vickibaker]

"I want someone to talk about me the way red talks about tropes" would be a wonderful sticker

[KaiTenSatsuma]

Yeah, "Wikipedia", while not good as your *sole* source, it makes for quite a good source for sources

It's something of a sourcerer

*_Update: 12/6/2023_* - _Please for the love of god do not just straight copy and paste Wikipedia articles or other people's work into a word document and just read it out loud or you also will be the topic of an hbomberguy video_

[yasminraveh]

My method is opening 26 sources at once, reading maybe 4 of them, getting timed out, and finally, watching something on Netflix.

[travonarmstrong]

My college professor literally just told us about this Wikipedia method. I said, "Now if only they had told us this in high school."

[em]

My 11th grade English teacher taught like this. She was one of my hardest high school teachers and I never managed to get over a C on any of my written papers (luckily, grammar tests and quizzes and extra credit got my overall to barely an A). However, her teachings and methods are the ones that stuck with me the most throughout my life, both with researching and writing.

[MrMatheuslego]

I still remember the first time I went to Wikipedia's sources for a history assignment and ended up reading 3 different university books (a few chapters of them, don't worry) and 2 news articles that were contemporany to the event.

Seriously, y'all, those sources are amazing

[ivoryas]

You and Schaffrillas productions are some of the only people I've heard advocate for Wikipedia, but I've always loved using it. When I hit college and decided I shouldn't use it for a source itself, I remembered:
"Wait... doesn't it have a Works cited?"
And it literally feels like turning the internet into a library. I feel like that's honestly one of the best pieces of advice you could give someone on this, especially considering that when Wikipedia doesn't cut it, you can use *_another_* version of Wiki (and yes, there are plenty) like Wikibooks or something instead.

Also, 4:32
Based.

[vivavee]

How to do research:
step 1: get book
step 2: slam face against book
Step 3: repeat
step 4: ????
step 5: Profit!

[damienman]

The public library! Of course! That's what we used before the internet!

Quick, MAKE HASTE TO THE NEAREST PUBLIC LIBRARY


oh wait it's almost midnight....


back to google then.

[TheChocoboKid]

Red, the hero we need and deserve... and her sidekick blue too I guess.

[nigelpollitt]

This video makes a series of very good points. Two of them seem key to me. 1. When you are reading, make notes so that you never have to return to the original text you are reading, ie, make sure you harvest everything you need from a source at the point of reading it (and the point about not memorising was also good). 2. The second point was a great relief to hear, which is, make your thesis statement after considering your research (with the thumb tacks and string, that section). I've only ever experienced one essay writing advice session, and its gist was that you make your thesis statement, then do your research around that statement, then, over a course of months keep refining that statement. That I think also works, and you do need something to drive you to research in the first place, but I like the more open-minded approach of this video. I also liked the cartoon representation of the speaker, it cut out a whole level of distraction and allows one to focus on what is being said, rather than who is saying it. Thanks for this, you've given me exactly the kind of basic pointers I was seeking.