Popular Research

This morning I realized that some of my audience are a lot younger than I previously supposed. Not that this presents a problem (my commentary is for mature people of ALL AGES), but many people are not familiar with the reasons I write with such certainty about some subjects for which some of my thinking is seemingly unique, or in some cases, unnervingly typical.

And in short...I learned very early-on that there is an ever-present struggle between quick-reading "exciting" information and plodding, hard-to-understand research.

Personally, I wish people had the patience to do good "fact-checking" all the time. But the reality is that people are so hard-pressed for immediate answers all the time, that they only have time to get the highlights (I have blundered into the very same faux-pas again and again over the years).

When I realized this, I immediately saw that there was a need for people willing to spend time doing otherwise boring research--people who could understand the material they studied well enough to draw both intriguing and useful conclusions that would quickly appeal to an audience that was moving along at such a brisk pace, that it couldn't help but overlook things that were otherwise important.

The problem is that good researchers are often poor writers for a mass audience. And the demand for good research is surprisingly weak. So it's invariably a low-income craft.

And the job requirements are hard to attain. One must be a good student, a good teacher AND a good writer...simultaneously.

It's a rewarding job, but not everyone can do it.