hey everybody so in the months since I

put out the Dionysus video I've gotten a

few emails from people asking about my

sources and my process and all that jazz

and around the third time I had to

answer one of those emails I had a

sudden Epiphany

maybe this process isn't as intuitive as

I thought

so today I'm gonna share some

sweet wisdom with all of you who've ever

wondered how the heck do I do research

now I'm gonna start at the very

beginning of the process and it's

probably not what you're expecting to

hear

this may be a bit shocking and I'd

advise elderly members of the audience

to take a seat first

maybe check their

blood pressure before I get to it

we good everyone's sitting comfortably

okay the absolute first step to any

research project is Wikipedia

no really

I learned this in university from a real

professor and everything

we all learned

years ago that you're never supposed to

cite Wikipedia and this is completely

true

nobody trusts it as a source it

would be like citing something you read

off the side of a subway car but what

wikipedia is good at is directing you to

actual sources right at the bottom in

that sweet little references section is

a goldmine of all kinds of sources and

tells you what kind of information you

can expect to find in those sources and

sometimes even what pages they're on

websites translated primary sources

anything and everything from the

reference section so as you go through

the relevant Wikipedia pages any

information that catches your eye will

have a nice little citation on it so

grab that sucker and add it to the list

and when I say pages plural I mean it

pretty much everything has its own

dedicated Wikipedia page except for us

but that single page isn't gonna be

enough to get the full picture you want

to find every page that relates to the

subject matter important places related

people or groups relevant time periods

stuff like that broadly you want to get

as much related stuff as you can since

that'll let you contextualise the

subject learning about it in isolation

only gives you a fragment of the whole

picture get greedy with it you want to

know everything about this subject and

that means you don't need to skimp on

the sources you pull together so once

you've combed through every tangentially

related Wikipedia page on your chosen

subject noted down a list of promising

sources and what you expect to find in

them that's when you enter stage two

hunting down some sweet sources so now

you've got a list of sources you think

will lead to more information and the

odds are good most of them are gonna be

books so you can either check your local

library catalog and see if they have the

sources you need or you can give the

titles a google and see if you can find

them online legally of course sometimes

Google Books has a preview available and

sometimes it even contains the pages you

need but mostly your

looking for e-books or library copies

now this advice all applies pretty much

universally no matter what you're trying

to research the process of finding

sources is usually going to boil down to

find a library or google it and get

really lucky but let's say for the sake

of specificity you're researching

something historical like a mythological

figure for example in cases like this

you're gonna need to start dealing with

primary and secondary sources now

broadly if you're studying a historical

thing the primary sources are gonna be

stuff that was written directly about

that thing from people who are point

blank on the thing or otherwise had

first-hand experience with its thickness

the secondary source is other stuff

written about the primary sources and

thus there at least one degree of

separation away from the original thing

and the number one rule in any kind of

research is you always want to find the

primary sources first if they still

they don't always if you're trying to

option of reading a bunch of

first-person accounts of that thing or a

book somebody wrote about those

first-person accounts at that thing

choose the first-person accounts it'll

take longer to get through but you'll

get a much more accurate perspective no

text is free from bias but the farther

away the writer was from the subject

they're writing about the more bias will

be present in their interpretation it's

like in the giant n dimensional game of

telephone that is history the actual

thing you're trying to research is the

starting person and the primary sources

are all the people right next to the

starting thing who probably heard it

pretty clearly but all the secondary

sources are from farther down the line

where you're starting to get garbled

interpretations of interpretations and

maybe somebody along the way started

actively messing with the other players

by not actually repeating what they

heard the first place and it's a mess

basically if you want the clearest image

possible of the thing you find the

primary sources now again purely

hypothetically let's say you're

researching a Greek god or something and

you want to know what they were like

back in the day your primary sources are

going to be the myths about that God or

the hymns recorded in their worship and

even then it's important to note that

these sources were most likely

translated from the original ancient

greek to english and that translation

adds a layer of bias as well really for

the sake of your own sanity you've got

to accept that you'll never be able to

find the clear unvarnished truth of the

thing but the closer you get the clearer

the image will be

but while primary sources will give you

a good look at the thing in question you

actually do need secondary sources

specifically you need secondary sources

that help you contextualize the primary

sources to understand the possible

biases and factors present in the

primary sources you want to know who

wrote them and when and what exactly was

happening at the time

primary sources let you examine the

thing secondary sources let you examine

the primary sources and it's very

important to do both when you're doing

research

you can't just take these

sources at face value stressed now and

you got to be aware that the writers all

had their personal take on the subject

and the more you know about that take

the more you'll be able to extrapolate

what parts of the original thing they

might have been minimizing you're

putting the spotlight on it'll help you

get a clearer picture of the original

it's also important not to shy away from

credible sources of information that

don't seem to fit with what you already

know about the subject

if you're only

looking for stuff that agrees with you

you're not actually doing research

you're just looking to confirm what you

already think but this is another reason

why it's very important to look at the

context for your sources to judge

whether or not they're actually credible

if you're conflicting information is

coming from

I don't know someone's unsourced tumblr

post you might not want to assign it as

much literary weight as the complete

works of Homer

context for your sources

is seriously everything I can't stress

that enough

so you find the myths and

the hymns and then you find other

versions of the same myths and hymns and

then you find some secondary sources

talking about the authors of those myths

and hymns and you've got so much

information about this mythical figure

and the people who wrote about them and

when all this happened and you don't

know what to do with it

this brings me to the next step

bury yourself in notes take notes on

everything no really this isn't like

class notes where you write stuff down

so you can pass tests on it later this

is a whole different ballgame if you're

researching a historical or mythical

you've got accounts from different time

periods write down when they're from and

who put them down anything interesting

about the writers lives write that down too

if your general approach to

note-taking is the same as mine as in

I’ll remember this I don't need to write it

down that doesn't apply here it doesn't

matter if you think you'll remember it

you want to write it down anyway because

this isn't about memorizing it's about

putting all your information in one

place so you can deal with it all at

once later in your notes you want to

distill down everything you could

possibly use from the original sources

you want to make it so you never have to

return to the original text because

everything you could possibly be looking

for is right there

if you're writing a

paper or something else that needs

direct attribution maybe note down some

useful quotes with page numbers too just

to make your life easier down the line

this will leave you with a giant pile of

information loosely connected the actual

subject at hand and if you're wondering

what you're supposed to do with this pile

break out the thumbtacks and string

who's ready to connect some dots now

that you have a huge heap of everything

you know about this person place or thing

you get to start on the fun part

filling in the gaps you have to take the mess of

you've acquired organize it into

categories lay it all out and start

bringing the big picture together this

is where you get to be creative you have

all these static points of data you just

need to find a best fitting curve that

connects all the dots into one coherent

narrative basically a thesis that all

the evidence you've collected supports

its pure creative puzzle solving and

it's gonna be great

by the way if there was any justice in

the world this is what high school

English teachers would tell you when

they assign essays but since they almost

always make you figure out the thesis

statement first they basically flip the

whole process upside down by making you

figure out the big picture rundown

before you get any actual evidence it's

dumb don't do that

so once you've constructed your thesis

out of thumbtacks and yarn you just

gotta polish it up to be presentable

that's a whole nother video Blue already

did so if you're curious go ahead and

check that out

now if you'll excuse me I

have some conspiracies to unearth later

Oh God