ABSTRACT
Research is not just an abstract intellectual attempt to separate fact from fiction or to tell an evidence-based story about the world. Methods are a good support for a research practice, but they are not a good guide to the most important issues. The idea of building skills through practice can be intimidating because skills are often slow to develop. To reuse the cooking analogy, the practice is trying the same recipe, day after day, with a willingness to get it wrong early in the process to ensure good outcomes later in the process. Writing is often difficult and frustrating, but it forces a committed engagement with the ideas in a way unlike simple cogitation and rumination: ideas in the imagination are fluid; words on the page are static. For most people, the process of speaking is pretty fluid, and they can generate comprehensible statements that effectively communicate their ideas to their listeners.
