So I treat research as its own stage. A text file or a spreadsheet is all it needs.

1. Start with questions, not a topic

A topic like "remote onboarding" is too wide to research. You can read about it forever. Before I open a single tab, I write down the questions the finished piece has to answer. For example:

• Who is this for, and what do they already know?
• What decision or task is the reader facing?
• What are the two or three things they most need to understand?
• What would a sceptical reader push back on?

Those questions become my reading filter. If a source doesn't help answer one of them, I can skip it, however interesting it looks.

2. Keep a source log

Every source I use goes into one list with the same few fields:

The last two columns matter most. Keeping my summary separate from the exact wording stops me from accidentally presenting my paraphrase as a quote, or a quote as my own idea. It also makes fact-checking at the end much faster, because I'm not hunting for "that article I read on Tuesday".

3. Check sources before you trust them

Not every source deserves the same weight. Before something goes in the log as a fact, I ask a few quick questions:

• Who is behind it? An organisation with expertise, a company selling something, or an anonymous page?
• Is it the original? If an article cites a study or a report, I try to find the study itself. Details often get lost or bent along the way.
• Is it current? A guide from years ago can still be right, but for anything technical, legal or about prices, I look for something recent.
• Does anyone else say the same? One source is a lead. Two independent sources are a lot more comfortable.

If I can't check a claim, I either leave it out or say clearly that it comes from one source.

4. Separate what sources say from what you think

While reading, I keep a second short list called "my take". This is where my own reactions go: patterns I notice, places where sources disagree, things that surprised me, gaps nobody seems to cover.

This list is usually where the actual angle of the piece comes from. The sources give me facts; the "my take" list tells me what I want to say about them. Keeping them apart means I always know which parts of the draft need a citation and which parts are my argument.

5. Look for the gaps

When I think I'm done, I go back to the questions from step 1 and mark each one:

• answered, with at least one solid source
• partly answered
• not answered

A "not answered" question has three possible fixes. I research more, I cut the question from the piece, or I'm honest in the text that the answer isn't clear. What I try not to do is fill the gap with vague sentences that sound confident.

6. Outline from the questions

Only now do I outline. Each question becomes a section, roughly in the order a reader would ask it. Under each heading I paste the relevant points from the source log and the "my take" list. When I start writing, every section already has its material, and the job is to connect it in clear sentences.

Knowing when to stop

The hardest part of research first is stopping. There is always one more article. My rule of thumb: when new sources mostly repeat what's already in my log, it's time to write. If something important turns up later, the log makes it easy to slot in.

It feels slower at the start, but the draft needs fewer rewrites and the final fact-check goes much faster.

How do you handle research? Do you collect everything first, or research as you write?