Michael Heiser spoke in Dayton and Columbus Ohio yesterday. He shared a few tips on research and sources.
- Use tools that help you do research more quickly. Cut down the time you need to get to an answer. Dissertations by definition cover all the ground to-date on a specific topic. You get a good summary in the first chapter and all the source information for further research on a topic. This speeds you along without having to lay all the ground yourself.
- Read peer-reviewed journals that scholars use. You can trust the hard work has been done here and you won’t be dealing with internet and Google “truth.”
- The best content is not online for free, i.e. Google. It will be behind a paywall that can be no-cost, but you have to do a little work. Get credentials at a research university library to access their journal database. Depending on their licensing agreement you may be able to access these remotely. Or you may need to use a terminal in the library itself.
Heiser specified the following resources
- American Theological Library Association (ATLA): The ATLA Religion Database® (ATLA RDB®) is the premier index to journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion, with coverage from 1949 and retrospective indexing for several journal issues as far back as the nineteenth century. Journals are selected for inclusion according to their scholarly merit and scope. The fact that many publishers solicit the inclusion of their journals in ATLA RDB is indicative of the stature it has achieved in the community of religion scholars.
- JSTOR: a highly selective digital library of academic content in many formats and disciplines. The collections include top peer-reviewed scholarly journals as well as respected literary journals, academic monographs, research reports from trusted institutes, and primary sources.
- Dr. Heiser’s recommended reading.