Digital Paper: A Manual for Research and Writing with Library and Internet Materials

by Andrew Abbott

“Shows the reader how to harness new technology while upholding the highest standards of research. The result is a joy to read . . . a boon for students.” —Robert J. Sampson, professor of the social sciences at Harvard UniversityToday’s researchers have access to more information than ever before. Yet the new material is both overwhelming in quantity and variable in quality. How can scholars survive these twin problems and produce groundbreaking research using the physical and electronic resources available in the modern university research library? In Digital Paper, Andrew Abbott provides some much-needed answers to that question.Abbott tells what every senior researcher that research is not a mechanical, linear process, but a thoughtful and adventurous journey through a nonlinear world. He breaks library research down into seven basic and simultaneous design, search, scanning/browsing, reading, analyzing, filing, and writing. He moves the reader through the phases of research, from confusion to organization, from vague idea to polished result. He teaches how to evaluate data and prior research; how to follow a trail to elusive treasures; how to organize a project; when to start over; when to ask for help. He shows how an understanding of scholarly values, a commitment to hard work, and the flexibility to change direction combine to enable the researcher to turn a daunting mass of found material into an effective paper or thesis.More than a mere how-to manual, Abbott’s guidebook helps teach good habits for acquiring knowledge, the foundation of knowledge worth knowing. Those looking for ten easy steps to a perfect paper may want to look elsewhere. But serious scholars, who want their work to stand the test of time, will appreciate Abbott’s unique, forthright approach and relish every page of Digital Paper.

Genres: Research, Sociology, Writing, Nonfiction, Research Methods, Professional Development

278 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 4, 2014

Reviews

[Lisa Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This rigorous and clearly written book is a must read for doctoral students. Though Abbott prefers offline to digital tools, his reasons are clear and compelling. Written mostly for social science writers, his principles are usefully translated for the humanities. His writing advice in the final chapter is the best I've encountered. I'll be assigning this in my graduate bibliography and research class.

[Filip Batselé · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I appreciated the most about this book, was its intellectual honesty. Several manuals on doing research that I had read in the recent past (I'm a PhD student myself) often gave the idea of research as a very linear, straightforward enterprise, where one can get from A to Z by following a fixed list of steps. Abbott's work is not such a book: it recognises that research is messy, and that the researcher experiences a constant back and forth as he tries to craft a research project. As the book explicitly recognises this reality of research (and it's somehow comforting to see how a senior researcher like Professor Abbott struggles with these issues just like junior researchers), it also offers some very pragmatic and realistic tips to improve research habits.

The one thing that I disagreed a bit with (or felt could warrant an update), was the strong focus on non-computer based tools when the author wrote the book. Also, some of the suggestions will obviously work better in the American library context, where massive budgets allow for specialised research librarians much more than elsewhere.

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent handbook on how to go about putting together a working, coherent stock of references when researching; in particular liked a very helpful section on reading tactics/strategies; recommended for all those in the business of finding things out and sharing the spoils of science; that being said, my personal favorite on writing a thesis is still Umberto Eco’s ‘how to write a thesis’.

[Amelia L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my favorite profs recommended this to me after I asked about an excerpt in class... here's to doing the extra credit :)

Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised by this book, both in its style and its actual helpfulness in making academia work for you instead of the other way around. Although I've always had a tenuous relationship with research and library work, I've enjoyed the process in the past. I used to just work until I felt the project was "done" and met all the criteria... turns out academic work is unsurprisingly much deeper than I previously thought, but somehow also built on serendipity and formula in equal parts.

Research has always felt somewhat mystical and esoteric to me- as someone who thrives off of short-term creative energy, I struggle to carry long-term projects to completion without feeling like some essential structure was missing. Digital Paper adequately creates a method for this structure, Abbot using terms like "brachiation," and brute-forcing" while drawing distinctions between reading for "narrative" vs "meditative" vs "mastery of the argument." I seriously enjoyed all of these terms being put into concrete use instead of effective research as some strange revelation you get after locking yourself in the university library for six hours. Library research IS a puzzle- and seems like it can be solved.

The other thing I appreciated was Abbot's recognition of the plight of the modern student! It's no secret that members of my generation are positively overwhelmed with infomation- constantly. And there's no guarantee sources we find online are peer-reviewed, recent, or even true at all! Abbot formulates a clear-headed middle ground between traditional library research in the stacks with a paper ALA Guide in hand and the modern Wild West of search-engine optimization and keywords. Nobody EXPLAINS research like this when you first begin to dip your toes into it in early middle/high school. And often the bad habits you start to develop there carry on and haunt you well into your university-level academic career.

I can definitely see myself revisiting this the next time I have to write a paper, read up on a site visit, or do historical or biographical research.

NOTABLE QUOTES:

"Never read a text without having specified ahead of time what you want get from it. Any other approach degenerates into narrative reading. Save that for Tolstoy." - p. 141

"Writing is thus the result of a gradual decision to restrain the dynamic possibilities of thinking and to say something particular. It is an arbitrary—even an aesthetic—decision. And through that decision, we will ultimately linearize a research process that has so far been joyously, anarchically nonlinear." - p. 201

[Alexander Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a very good start to organizing research with documents/artifacts found online or in a library. In fact, I think this is a good follow up reading to _Still Life with Rhetoric_ by Gries. While Abbott may feel otherwise, Gries offers a much more close textual case of how to do this kind of research while implying more general applications. What this book does instead is offer a strongly historically library studies focus to research. This book is a little more dogmatic about the language structures and tools of library studies research projects. It is not bad at explaining library well, but in doing so and in assuming a lot (incorrectly) about the differences between library research and general social science, this book rhetorically attempts to alienate a lot of people who could find value in it. You actively have to read this with an eye for arguing against the dogma if you are not a library scholar.

That said, the author claims to be fairly general, and claims serious nonlinearity is important to the library approach (and that this is fairly non-existent in social science literature methodologies... which is total nonsense), social and anthropological approaches such as trace ethnography, Actor-Network studies, and to some extent, Social Network Analysis very explicitly does this more radically than this book suggests that makes this approach unique to that of a "librarian" scholar. In addition, anyone who has done supervised machine learning would outright laugh at how linear this approach appears to them.

TL;DR: This book approaches a qualitative methodology that is useful in a very particularly difficult space, but the author needs to get off his high-horse about social science methodologies that he doesn't understand.

[Jonas Carlsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Digital Paper" is an amazing book for anyone who's about to write a large paper, BA/MA thesis, or research project. Andrew Abbott uses his vast experience to give thorough advice on designing a project. This includes defining a research question, searching for literature, constructing an argument, writing and much more. The book is geared towards library research, which Abbott defines as research based on already existing data. There is much advice in it, though, that is just as relevant if you're doing a project where you produce your own data. Although it is also written for students and researchers in the social sciences and humanities, I'm sure there's also a lot students in other areas can take away from this book. Abbott goes into a lot of details about things that might seem either a bit self-evident or pretty advanced depending on what you have read so far in the book at that point. However, Abbott also encourages jumping back and forth in the book, looking for advice that's relevant to how far you are at the moment with your project. Finally, the book is also suprisingly well-written. Abbott writes really colourfully, mixing jokes and jabs at the state of research with really qualified and sharply written advice. Definetely check this one out before writing your next paper/research project!

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Digital Paper" is an excellent book; you can benefit from it regardless of your field. It was initially recommended on Reddit in the context of academic reading. I wish I had read this book earlier when I tried to read so many books related to my field as a computer science student. I wish someone had told me then about narrative, master reading, and all other approaches.

Overall, "Digital Paper: A Manual for Research and Writing with Library and Internet Materials" is fantastic, and its author has a pleasant writing style. Reading this book, I feel that Andrew Abbott wrote this to help and guide you, and this book 100% delivers.

My favorite quotes:

There is no knowledge revolution—just a new level of overload, a lot of churning, and a lot of hype.

Reading without questions always reverts to narrative reading, and narrative reading always fails for anything but the first reading of a novel.

Like mastery reading, partial mastery reading is very hard work. If you do not have to rest every half hour because of sheer reading exhaustion, you are not working hard enough.

[Chris Dunlap · Rating 4 out of 5]

And the first book of 2018 is in the...books! Though aimed more toward undergrads, Abbott’s advice manual for researchers in the humanities and social sciences is extremely well-written and offers wonderful practical advice.

Highly recommended to anyone who strives to produce excellent scholarship in history, anthro, sociology, geography... you get the idea, folks.

[Livia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good writing. Feels a bit like mini essays sewn together, but easy to read and useful.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a lot to like about this book, including its desire to see research from a holistic perspective that includes much iteration. I found moments where he provided examples from his classes a bit more helpful/actionable than where he provided examples of his own research. I would have also appreciated a bit more attention to how discipline (or at least the social scientific focus) impacted the generalizeability of the advice. But, on the whole, this is a useful book.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent - more than a great collection of tips and recommendations for conducting research, it is also a thorough exploration of the research journey written by a man who has spent his life thinking about the topic, with some great thoughts on knowledge and learning (and reading, writing, memorizing, etc).

[Alex Linschoten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really useful for researchers who have to deal with a large mass of documents/sources. (So, almost everybody). Abbott lays out a way to process these sources, to think about how they fit into an ongoing research project, and how they should be organised. Strongly recommended for anyone doing a PhD.

[Charlene]

Favorite statement:

"Your actual research questions are thus provided by the list of things necessary to evaluate the alternative theories" (Abbott, 2014, p. 65).

[Mark]

COCC LB1047.3 .A22 2014

[Jeri]

Well, that was brutal.