From immersing oneself in timely customs to the pain of parting with a compelling anecdote, historical writers detail their research and writing methods

Wojtanowski, Alexandria

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Making the Most of Your Research: Advice from Historical Authors

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Roger Williams UniversityDOCS@RWUFeatured News Story The Week at Roger11-25-2014Making the Most of Your Research: Advice fromHistorical AuthorsAlexandria WojtanowskiRoger Williams UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://docs.rwu.edu/weekatroger_featured_newsPart of the Higher Education CommonsThis News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the The Week at Roger at DOCS@RWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in FeaturedNews Story by an authorized administrator of DOCS@RWU. For more information, please contact mwu@rwu.edu.Recommended CitationWojtanowski, Alexandria, "Making the Most of Your Research: Advice from Historical Authors" (2014). Featured News Story. 453.https://docs.rwu.edu/weekatroger_featured_news/453 News ArchiveMaking the Most of Your Research: Advice fromHistorical AuthorsFrom immersing oneself in timely customs to the pain of parting with acompelling anecdote, historical writers detail their research and writingmethodsNovember 25, 2014 Alexandria Wojtanowski ’15BRISTOL, R.I. – A term that evokes images of long hours spent in the library poring over stacks oftextbooks, “research” was branded with a new reputation as “exciting” by two steadfast historybu s in “From the Stacks to the Pages: How Research Tells the Stories from History,” the semester’s nal lecture in the Mary Te t White Cultural Center’s Talking in the Library Series. True to theirpassions, historical writers Taylor Polites and Je rey Meriwether – associate professor of history andRevolutionary War re-enactor – conjured the many roads down which their research has taken themin a lively discussion complete with a bag of props: Royal Navy caps, an HMS Ocean ribbon, andthe uniform of a master corporal in the French infantry.  With many aspiring writers among the audience, the speakers opened the conversation byintroducing how and where they start their research. For Meriwether, his development of in-depthresearching skills began as an undergraduate student who exhausted secondary sources availableat the library, compelling him to seek out primary sources. This quest eventually brought himoverseas to delve through the United Kingdom’s National Archives, and complemented hisacquired knowledge by visiting history museums and talking to descendants of historical  gures.“The more you learn to think critically, the more you start to recognize where to  nd the bestresearch,” says Meriwether, whose love of history in uenced his decision to join the U.S. NavyReserve and become a Revolutionary War re-enactor with His Majesty’s Tenth Regiment of Foot.Although his genre is  ction, Polites grounds his writing in research. Already equipped with afascination of how people encounter the world around them, he began cultivating an appreciationfor research as an undergrad student when he set out to approach new avenues in his writing.Author of The Rebel Wife (2012), Polites uses various  rsthand accounts from diaries and letters to“piece together the world” his characters lived in. To gain “a glimmer of what life was like in aparticular time and place,” he recommends going to the theatre, listening to music, and engagingin customs of the researched time-period. Polites credited AS220, a non-pro t community artscenter in Providence, for inspiring one of his stories when he took a class on ambrotype, a processthat prints photographs onto glass and is viewed through re ected light.Noting that researchers come across information so fascinating that they can’t bear to part with acompelling anecdote, Adam Braver – panel moderator and the University Library’s writer-in-residence – asked the authors what they do when it doesn’t seem to  t in their writing.When researching Rhode Islanders and the Spanish-American War, Meriwether discovered aProvidence Journal article about local troops stationed down south who would be denied atraditional American Thanksgiving because the soldier responsible for cooking their turkey dinnerwas imprisoned. Meriwether was fascinated by the newspaper’s daily coverage of the soldier’simprisonment and demands for his release so the Rhode Island troops wouldn't miss their holiday.A er trying to make the quirky anecdote  t, Meriwether decided that forcing it into his narrativewouldn’t help him accomplish his goals for the piece.“I put it in a footnote and I reference it heavily in the text,” he added with a chuckle.Polites has faced similar experiences in his writing and learned that  ction writing requires the samefocus and discipline as academic writing. He explained that anecdotes can help writers create aworld that is interesting and accessible to readers, but he is o en surprised at how contemporaryand relatable certain historical accounts can seem.While they pen di erent writing styles, both writers agree that research is fundamental to informingtheir stories and directing their writing process. Polites said he knows it’s time to dive back intoresearch and collect more details when he starts to lose interest or momentum while writing. “As Iwrite,” he explained, “this relationship between the research and the writing continues in a verysynergistic way.”Meriwether’s goal is to conduct enough research to establish context and “create an infrastructureyou can hang everything on.” But even a er gathering su cient facts to con dently recreate aworld, he asserted that writers never know what they might  nd that in uences their perspective inan unexpected way.“O en it is quite serendipitous, you just happen upon something,” Meriwether said. “You can’t golooking for the turkey dinner stories – they just pop up.”

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Making the Most of Your Research: Advice from Historical Authors

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