How Important is Research for Your Writing

1. Are you a subject matter expert on the topic? If so, you may know your topic well enough to inform your readers. You write from knowledge and experience.

2. Is your article a deep dive into your subject matter? Even if your article is within your subject matter, you may want to do some research to explain it better.

3. Are you writing an informative article or an opinion piece? If an informative article is based on your experience, you probably don’t need a lot of research. Opinion pieces based on your experience or feelings don’t need research either.

4. What kind of audience are you targeting? If you’re writing for academics or analysts, you’ll definitely want to put in some research, possibly some charts and graphs as well.

Just be careful when you do your research — as Shakespeare aptly wrote: The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.