Research: Our Favorite Resources (Patreon)

We're sometimes asked about our research process, which has become pretty well-tuned after 6+ years of making MSB. Although it's evolved over time in response to our changing habits and the constantly-in-flux state of the internet (many an internet search engine is not what it used to be 😭), there are some resources and methods that are so consistently reliable we go back to them every time! So here it is, the MSB research resource-guide:

• The public library

  • A great source for books, of course (including digital copies which are instantly accessible), but many library systems also provide access to other research tools, in person and online. For example: archives of various magazines and newspapers, movies and tv-shows available to borrow, free access to scholarly journals, specialty encyclopedias, and even research assistance from librarians.

• Wikipedia, "The Free Encyclopedia"

  • Usually a good starting-point, sometimes amazingly well-researched and comprehensive, and the "References" section is basically a reading list of further sources on the topic.

  • Depending on the topic, searches in other, relevant languages may yield better results than searching in English! We rely on Japanese Wikipedia quite a bit, and have had cause to consult Wikipedia in other languages, too.

  • One word of caution - sometimes page authors/editors misrepresent (maliciously or not) the contents of a source. If an assertion in a Wikipedia article seems off, check the source cited to see whether it actually says that.

• Internet Archive

  • Especially for hard-to-find and out-of-print books.

• JSTOR

  • The place to go for scholarship/academic writing on wide range of topics. A free account offers access to a limited number of articles per month, but you may have unlimited access through your library or school.

  • Can be overwhelming (there are just SO MANY SOURCES), so it's important to explore the 'Advanced Search' options and to try multiple, differently-configured searches if you're not getting helpful results.

• Google Books, Google Scholar

  • Not as useful as they used to be, but I do still find good excerpts, and sometimes whole, freely available online, books.

• https://forvo.com 

  • An online pronunciation guide, with millions of words and phrases across hundreds of languages, recorded by native speakers. Not research per-se, but since we are writing scripts and frequently need to pronounce words, phrases, and names from languages we don't speak, Forvo is a valuable resource!

One last tip - how to search a specific website, rather than the whole internet:

Once a month or so, a listener reaches out to us to ask "which episode did you talk about [topic]?" My memory isn't good enough to answer that one off-the-cuff, so I use this trick pretty frequently. Type the following into the search bar:

site:[website, without the www. prefix] "search term"

For example, when I was trying to remember which episode I researched the history of ice cream in Japan, I entered:

site:gundampodcast.com "ice cream"

And because our website includes very thorough show notes, the search results were for the sub-pages for those two episodes:

It's not 100% reliable, but still extremely handy!

Questions about our process? Favorite sources you'd like to recommend? Let us know in the comments!

~ Nina