Research for Writers

Scientist with test tubes From trunks in the attic to county record offices, here are the places to go and the people who can help you research your ideas, plus authors' tried and tested research dos and don'ts.

My top-ten research musts

Rosamund Derry investigates what else a writer needs, aside from paper and pen, to start researching ideas and publishing opportunities. The best news is that many of them are free!

Research portal

On this site you will find research tools to help with everything from constructing a sentence to tracking down that obscure journal.

My trip to the local record office

Maria Faulkner was expecting to be bored when the MA Professional Writing students were ‘encouraged’ to attend the tour of Cornwall County Record office. Anticipating dusty staff with wispy hair and hearing trumpets, she was delighted by the reality...

Researching for Kneehigh Theatre

Ellie Mitten met stage writer Carl Grose while he was working on stagings of Beauty and the Beast and Faust, Part One. He talked about the experience of researching projects for popular Cornish theatre company, Kneehigh.

In search of D.H. Lawrence

Much has been written of D.H. Lawrence’s time in Cornwall, but one writer has a unique insight into the period, and a unique story to tell. For the past few years, Rebecca Matthews has been researching and writing an account of Lawrence’s time in a small rural cottage in Zennor, and of the unlikely relationship he struck up with a local farmer, William Henry Hocking. As she explains, her mission is to finally give William Henry, her great grandather, a voice…

Research, travel and truth

Philip Marsden is a writer who travels, but how faithfully can any writer depict other people’s lives, when the world they inhabit is inevitably "filtered", by differences in language and perception? Here, the writer talks to Ruth Underwood about how he writes what he sees.

Capturing a place and time

William Dalrymple is acclaimed for his meticulously researched books on the Indian subcontinent. Judy Duckworth met him to discuss his research methods.

Living your research

Very few writers – indeed very few people – have been to the Antarctic - one of the most remote and unforgiving places on the planet. Jean McNeill has. Here, she discusses her 2005 visit with Rosamund Derry, stressing the importance of such primary research for writers.

Researching lives

Music writer Alan Clayson talks to Rowan Clarke about the art of researching biographies.

Getting to know your subject

Lucinda Hawksley, author of Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel, talks to Sam Bowhay about her biography exploring the life of Millais’ doomed Ophelia – and how she became obsessed with her subject.