“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.” –Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road
I will forever be grateful that God made me a woman of many questions, but I have learned that questions aren’t always received with enthusiasm. Questions put us on the spot; they require that we sift through knowledge and experiences. They move us to think and consider. Questions reveal where our knowledge ends and often demonstrate where our willingness to learn begins.
Good questions cannot be limited to academia. They should be asked of us all. We are asking existential questions every day anyway, but we are forgetting how to talk about them.
Who am I?
Is there a God?
Why am I here?
These questions pervade our culture. The search for meaning is always before us, and for every question, there are hundreds of ideologies shouting out their answers. Political movements campaign, religions proselytize, and behind many screens lie internet trolls ready to pounce. We live in a world that preaches “find your own truth,” yet often wanders further from its discovery.
Beyond mere information, the power of the interrogative is to diagnose reality and to decipher between fact and fiction. We allow questions to soak into our depths by asking the right ones. “What are you doing?” doesn’t hit the ears or heart in the same way as “Who do you worship?” Are we willing to ask the questions that energize our souls and challenge our assumptions?
Research begins in the space between what we know and what we don’t. Researchers enter the conversation here, but a Christian researcher best honors the call on their life if they allow a purposeful curiosity to help them ask questions, a discerning wisdom to evaluate sources for truth, and a sustaining grace in the way they use what they learn. These attributes create a researcher whose character seeks out answers to serve as a redemptive voice in a fallen world.
Purposeful Curiosity
Those willing to ask the hard questions must also be equipped to search for answers. This is why refined curiosity eventually narrows the question needing to find its answer. It saves a lot of time if your question is specific. If I ask, “Is generative artificial intelligence good for education?” when what I really want to know is, “What is the value of imaginative writing in moral formation in the age of generative artificial intelligence?” I will be presented with such a broad range of information that finding sources that address my actual question will be akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
If this compression of our questions doesn’t happen, the colossal potential of curiosity often feels overwhelming to the mind. The vast possibilities of questions and sources can cause many curious minds to numb and retreat from the work of deep inquiry and huddle in corners of comfort and entertainment.
The chaos of curiosity is easy to recoil from, but there are ways to rein the chaos in. Nan Johnson describes her process of using the “Archival Wheel” in a way that felt whimsical and intriguing. She collected sources from archives, rare book libraries, historical sites, and prestigious libraries and arranged her collection like spokes on a wheel. She then asked, “What had I collected? What could it tell me?” She realized her source material could lead her to the hub of her wheel, and eventually, as she looked at the collection, she found a coherent story.
This is the moment researchers hope for: unity is found when the scattered sources become scaffolding for the larger idea. Archives, peer-reviewed articles, primary texts, and wildcard sources begin to form the argument when the researcher can spot how the sources can act in collaboration with or challenge the researcher’s own perspective. The researcher needs to know their question well and why they should be the one to answer it. As they begin to search, their eye is sharpened to spot the pattern of story in their sources when the sources support or challenge each other. After all, “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” Proverbs 25:2 Curiosity may begin with haunting and perplexing questions, but bringing a formality to that curiosity fuels the question with direction (and one needs to know what keywords to type into a database). Once that direction is found, discernment can begin to forge the frame of truth.
Discerning Wisdom
Weighing the complexity of the charcuterie of knowledge that is available to us 24/7 takes a trained palate for truth. The tantalizing pull to stuff ourselves with aligned conjecture that distorts our view of those who do not share our perspective is constantly straining to attract our attention. In the abundance of information and performative confidence, discernment is not just finding sources that agree with answers we have already decided are right, but also resisting the temptation to interpret evidence selectively or dismiss evidence that contradicts claims. Wise research requires that we humbly evaluate what is before us for truth and routinely abide in the Word so that we can more readily identify truth when we find it. As “Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” John 8:31-32
Though not divinely inspired, I think Aristotle’s Rhetoric offers a place to start: He offers, “Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker [ethos]; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind [pathos]; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself [logos].”
Sarah Ann Singer reminds readers that checklists alone cannot supply an accurate view of how a source functions rhetorically and that sometimes “wildcard” or unconventional sources can bring new views worth considering. She also encourages people to “pay attention to their own perspectives and orientations; they, too, are part of a rhetorical situation and should be mindful about how their biases (and algorithms) will impact their research.”
When considering the content worth taking in, or putting out on display for all to see, what is the ethos you speak from? The pathos you seek to draw others into? The logos you desire to convince others of? We seek out other perspectives because we know our own is limited, and we evaluate truth because we know others may be intentionally misleading or unintentionally mistaken. Peer-reviewed research journals found in university databases or research platforms such as JSTOR or EBSCO are imperative for finding reliable sources. I have also found it invaluable to use research-based social media pages as discovery tools for newly released research. However, a post does not equal proof of a claim. These research-focused pages are best used to discover titles of articles that can be verified as legitimate research through other databases. Discernment coupled with wisdom helps us examine claims carefully and follow the evidence to truth.
Sustaining Grace
Once we learn to let discernment guide us in pursuing truth, we need sustaining grace to carry that truth to the world. Whether our research applies to business or academia, our words should do more than just convey information. Our words should help others to recognize the humanity in others and the stakeholders our ideas could impact. Steven B. Katz’s research and analysis of a Nazi memo written by Willy Just concerning the efficiency of vans that could gas prisoners headed to concentration camps shows that while writing may be technically precise and logically driven, it could remain unethical, especially if human lives are the problem rhetorical efficiency is attempting to solve. We can never forget: every issue has a face; every face has a soul, even when that face exists on the other side of a screen.
Our communication, whether in speech or print, benefits from the counsel of Ephesians 4:29 and should carry an aesthetic that builds up the hearer and offers grace. If we fail to seek good for our readers, we ignore their humanity and risk casting those who hold opposing views as the villain. The careless sharing of ideologies can pull our souls toward outrage. In a world inundated with opinion, believers need not fall victim to weak research, caustic division, and the bitterness of broken hearts. We were created for more than that. We are created for discovery, freedom, and love.
A Prayer of Commission:
Jesus, may the words of this reader be used by you to sustain the weary. As this writer ventures into the world of research. May they maintain a holy curiosity throughout their writing career that will lead them to bring others to your mighty love through discovery. May they be protected from lies and the schemes of the enemy as they stand for truth. And may they forever rest in the grace that is theirs through your love. Whether their words are used in business, education, or personal correspondence, may they be offered in a way that shares the awe and wonder of your mysteries, the deep truth that brings freedom to those in captivity, and the radical grace that you gave your life to offer. What a joy it is to be an ambassador of your might and love. Give them what Isaiah spoke of in Isaiah 50:4: a tongue of those who are taught, that they may know how to sustain with a word those who are weary, and awaken their ear to hear as those who are taught. In your name I pray, Amen
Resource Library (With MLA Sample Works Cited)
Works Cited*
Aristotle, 360 BCE. The Rhetoric, Book I.” The Artistic (Rhetorical) Proofs, Bellevue College, www2.bellevuecollege.edu/artshum/materials/spch/Massey/Winter05/220/ArtisticProofs.htm. Accessed 14 Oct. 2026.
Citation Machine. https://www.citationmachine.net/. Accessed 15 Oct. 2026.
EBSCO. EBSCO, https://www.ebsco.com/.
“EdTech and Mobile Learning.” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/Edtechandmobilelearning/.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Crossway, 2016.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Dust Tracks on a Road. HarperPerennial, 1996.
Jerry Falwell Library. Liberty University, https://www.liberty.edu/library/.
Johnson, Nan. “Autobiography of an Archivist.” Working in the Archives: Practical Research Methods for Rhetoric and Composition, edited by Alexis E. Ramsey et al., Southern Illinois UP, 2010, pp. 290–303.
JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/.
Katz, Steven B. “The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust.” College English, vol. 54, no. 3, 1992, pp. 255. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/ethic-expediency-classical-rhetoric-technology/docview/236919327/se-2.
*This works cited list should have a hanging indent, but alas, the blog platform didn’t want to support that even when I coded it in. Keep in mind, your Works Cited (MLA) or References (APA) page can be infuriating, but that is where Citation Machine comes in!
