Finding documents in a systematic way and learning from them is research. The documents can be anything—books, images, music, videos, tweets. They all provide opportunities for learning if approached in the right frame of mind: Learning from documents = learning independently. It’s how you can take charge of your education.
Research is work and requires time; when done in a rush it yields superficial results. Allow yourself time to be methodical and thorough.
Besides answering the immediate question, research is valuable because it cultivates …
At SCI-Arc, researching buildings, architects, and sites is part of the design process; it is creative, challenging & rewarding. The studios and seminars set challenges that no single resource can answer. While Google can be a good place to start, it’s never enough. The most successful student presentations stitch together critically synthesized images and words gathered from a wide variety of sources—print and digital, old and new, familiar classics and unfamiliar discoveries.
The ability to research efficiently is a skill that all architects need. Practicing architecture means researching. The time to start good habits is now.
It is normal to begin with only a vague idea of what you are looking for: use encyclopedias and dictionaries and other reference materials to get a quick overview of the important documents—the literature—of the topic. Another value of reference books is to clarify your terminology: be alert to search words that have a variety of meanings--"architecture" for instance.
The most efficient way to acquire new information is to take advantage of the work of others who have used documents, and examined and described them. This special category of tools includes bibliographies, library catalogs, periodical indexes and search engines. These indexes may not provide documents directly, but tell you what exists, and where it can be found.
Indexing uses terminology more systematically than everyday speech, so the results can seem strange. However whenever indexes offer hyperlinked subject headings, like ... Architecture, Domestic--California--Los Angeles. ... click them to find more related resources.
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The documents will be useful only if studied carefully. Study means taking time to absorb the words and images and think about them--not just glance at them. If the document has an index, use it to find all the sections that relate to the question.
Each document is also valuable as a link to other documents—this applies to print as well as digital resources. Look for citations—references to other documents in footnotes, end notes, bibliographies, filmographies, etc. These provide the next set of documents to study.
Evaluate all documents--whatever media or source--in terms of ...
Write down the names of the documents used, and where they were found. Keeping one, centralized notebook for all your research notes simplifies production of accurate and complete bibliographies for written papers (which at SCI-Arc are required!) This will also protect against information overload (i.e. “I saw that somewhere, but can’t remember where ….”)
