How to Research
Taught by Sarah Lohman
Sarah Lohman is a culinary historian and the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed book Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine. She focuses on the history of American food as a way to access stories of women, immigrants, and people of color, and to address issues of racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Her work has been featured inTheWall Street Journal andThe New York Times, as well as onAll Things Considered; and she has presented across the country, from the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, DC to The Culinary Historians of Southern California. She is also 1/2 of the Masters of Social Gastronomy, a monthly food science and history talk at Caveat NYC, with Brainery co-founder Jonathan Soma.
In my work as a culinary historian, I don't just dive into recipe databases. I've tracked the evolution of ingredients in newspaper archives, flipped through the pages of a 1820s whaling journal, hunted down primary sources on genealogical websites, and traveled to the basement of the Alamo (just kidding, but close). In this class, you'll learn all the skills you need to research non-fiction, look up information for your next novel, and even how to find the truth behind a suspicious social media post.
In this primer on researching, we'll cover:
- Beyond the Google search: Google Books and Ngram viewer
- How to find primary sources and when to trust secondary sources.
- How to access academic articles and scientific studies (and why you should).
- How to research historical figures using Ancestry.com and Newspaper databases.
- When you need to go to the library/archive (and when you don’t).
- The importance of research experiences - go touch a thing, see a thing, and do a thing.
We'll practice analyzing sources throughout class and there will be plenty of time for Q&A!
