by John McDevitt

Created on: June 23, 2007   Last Updated: August 29, 2008

Michelangelo sensed the life trapped inside a solid block of marble and liberated his David from the stone. Research, like Michelangelo's chisel, chips away lifeless surface material to reveal the ideas buried deep within a topic. Research transforms the unknown into the familiar so you can tackle new subjects. Research invites the authority and credibility of experts into your writing. Solid research is vital because it yields the knowledge you need to write with confidence, build trust with your audience, and dig out the big ideas that get readers (and editors) excited.

When you write about familiar subjects, especially from personal experience, you write with the comfort of knowledge. If you're willing to learn, you can write confidently about any subject, even when you know nothing about that subject. It simply takes time, patience, and careful research.

Research is a voyage of discovery stopping at many ports of call along the way. As you learn more and more, as you immerse yourself in your research, your confidence (and enthusiasm) will grow. When you're ready to begin writing the first draft, you might be surprised at how much you've learned and how much you've enjoyed your journey of discovery. If we wrote only from personal experience, we'd run out of material quickly. When you embrace research as a writing tool you expand your horizons and become a more confident writer.

Research not only builds knowledge and confidence, it adds credibility that establishes a bond of trust with your readers. One of the best ways to firm up your authority as a writer is with specifics that you uncover in your research.

Suppose you were writing an article on the impact of baby boomer retirement on the economy. Your piece will have more depth when you use history to bolster your argument by showing how the boomers influenced the economy when they were kids in the 1950s. "Mattell cornered the toy market in the 50s" is too general and dull. Get specific and breathe life into your article with something like this instead. Mattell launched the Barbie doll, the best selling toy in history in 1959.

Give your readers something to chew on. When you talk about how the boomers are likely to affect our economy you could introduce them this way: The oldest boomers are turning 62 this year and they have a lot of money to spend. True, but generalities like these won't do much for your credibility or reader attention.

Instead, pull in an outside source and use specifics to hold reader interest.

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