In Michael Klein’s article “What is it we do when we write articles like this one — and how can we get students to join us”, he discusses research as a hunter/gatherer dichotomy. This is great way to divide the concept of research into two distinct schools. A hunter searches, he knows what he desires, and tries his best to capture it, and then use it in an essay or article. A gatherer discovers, just as a crop is not ready until much after it is planted, gathering research may not give you immediately what you are searching for, but can ultimately give you insights you would not have had before. There are benefits and drawbacks to both of these stratagems. If you are hunting, there is a chance you will miss valuable information in the text, things you overlook not because they are not important, but because they are not what you are searching for at that moment. A gathering strategy is much slower, consuming much more time, and may not always yield results that are as effective, especially if the source you are trying to gather from is not very topical. The optimal option, as discussed by Klein, is a combination of both “strategic hunting and heuristic gathering”.

I am guilty of not taking the time to gather properly the majority of the time I do research. The difference between me and the people that Klein discusses in his article is that they are all doing research about something that interests them. They have no problem spending hours doing gathering style research on whatever topic they are interested in, as whatever they find will be truly enlightening for them. I find it very difficult to properly gather information when I am researching a topic that I have little interest in. This is a major part of why I have less problem doing research for CTW, as we get to choose our own topics, and write about things that interest us. I still need to strive to be more patient as I do my research, but with topics becoming more interesting to me, my style of information collection has definitely improved.