Research is killing my writing.
Six hours later, and the page only has a headline.
As someone trained in academic scientific writing, it's hard to let go of the rules that defined every word I wrote for years of my life. Everything needed to have a source; everything was required to be backed up with evidence-and if the evidence wasn't there? It had to be explained, and I had to brainstorm why and how to find something to support my point.
Journalism is a whole different ball game. It needs sources and reliable evidence, but it also needs to be fun to read. It has to have a light, free-flowing, almost story-like capacity to it that scientific journals would scoff at.
It's easy to spend hours at a time going down the research rabbit hole. You start with needing to confirm one fact, and suddenly you're 10 centuries and 15 papers deep with enough information to write 6 books. So how do we draw the line between needing peer-reviewed sources and just taking the writer's word for it?
You can't write an article if you can't cross the first hurdle, but are we meant to just blindly accept everything we read? We can do our own research, but how many of us have the skills and time needed to do it quickly and efficiently.
The line between fact and fiction gets blurred by journalists more each day. The ‘fake news’ epidemic continues to spread, and people find more reasons to stick to their beliefs. It doesn’t matter if what they see is the rage rant of someone that doesn’t know cats from dogs or a 5-year-old regurgitating opinions they’ve heard but don’t understand. We want to see things that confirm what we think, and it’s human nature to dismiss the things that go against us.
Every time I try to write, I’m constantly stumbling over barriers that I’ve put there myself. I research, and then I try to write what I know. My mind is continually pushing the idea that my article isn’t readable if I don’t have a definitive proof for every thought. I know this isn’t true. My writing needs to be truthful, honest and informative. It needs to tell facts, to tell a story, whilst still being entertaining. To be able to entertain any form of audience or discussion, you need to trust me. You need to trust the words you’re reading.
There is no solution to this; The scientific lens through which I view non-fiction isn’t a problem for the majority of readers. It might not be a problem for you. Needing evidence for claims isn’t something new, and it’s something we should all want at times. Critical thinking is an important life skill, but too much of it can ruin creativity. It makes it impossible to get anything done because it’s a never-ending path.
We all need to learn to balance our creativity, our need for truth, and most importantly, writers need to trust that their readers can critically think for themselves. Unsure of something? Do your own research. Look for academic studies and peer-reviewed articles. Use multiple sources. Don’t believe everything you read at first glance. Know that writers may try their best to convey their version of the truth-but ultimately it’s up to you to choose yours.
Do you prefer your articles to have easily accessible sources, or do you prefer to just take the authors word for it?
