EE user Ann C. Gilchrest is a researcher who understands the value of having one’s work critically dissected by outside eyes. Specifically by someone who is both skilled and frank, as opposed to friends who read lightly and praise us supportively.

Is a database a source? Of course, of course! As researchers, we can use anything as a source. The issue is whether its information is reliable. Before we can reach a decision about the accuracy of any single source ...

An earlier posting about the research process has triggered a boatload of questions—and a bit of frustration. “I must not be doing something right,” sighed one friend of this page. ...

Inquiring minds have asked: "How does EE differ from CMOS?"

Yesterday’s QuickTest presented a page from a published source, with a helpful abstract of a document. We used the abstract to locate the original, then presented you with a typescript of the full document—inviting you to compare the two and tell us whether-and-why the effort was or was not worth it. ...

Here's an imaged page from a published work. The flagged paragraph provides an abstract of a document recorded in an eighteenth-century deed book. ...

After reading the latest Q & A from Chicago Manual,1 our friend Bonnie posed her own question that gets to the heart of Evidence Style and why it follows certain practices ...

Our questioner had just stumbled upon the Industrial Schedule of the 1860 U.S. census. An oddball? Well, as you can see from the image here, it certainly doesn’t look like the census we typically consult when we set out to identify Americans of the past ...

An email forum for researchers currently carries a thread on citing long URLs vs. digital paths (aka “waypoints”). One commenter saw an advantage: If we cite the path, then we can eliminate layered citations. Can we really?

“Help!” said the email. "I’m stuck on this one line of research. I’m not a newbie. I’ve done research for years. I spend hours every day online, doing research. I’d appreciate a suggestion from an expert." O.K. This is it ...