RESEARCH AS ADVENTURE by Doreen Rappaport

Enjoy… :-)

Nerdy Book Club

The dictionary defines adventure as engaging in typically hazardous and exciting activity, especially the exploration of unknown territory.  Minus the words, “typically hazardous,” I believe that’s an apt definition of research.  As a writer of historical nonfiction, I’m usually on an adventure into someone’s life or the details of an event.  I move into different worlds with different customs and values.  I’m on a journey into the unknown, a journey of learning.

I have just completed a biography of Jackie Robinson.  I chose to write about Jackie Robinson because I perceive him as a one-person civil rights activist. For the last two years I have been involved in reconstructing the details of his personal life, his family, his environment, his friends, and his athletic achievements, etc. I moved back into an era when black achievement was extremely limited, when even an extraordinary athletic talent such as Robinson was not enough…

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