All writing requires research. Some writers might think, “Wait. I write fiction. I don’t need to conduct research because I’m making up everything.” But even fiction writers need to be accuracy, otherwise, they lose credibility. For example, if a novel is set in 1978, a character can’t say “I saw a story on CNN,” because the Cable News Network wasn’t launched until 1980.

Although information may be obtained from many places, nothing is more important than interviewing sources. Talking to people gets the most up-to-date information and the best anecdotes. Reading books and searching the Internet is fine, but the real joy and depth of research come from talking to people.

When conducting research it’s useful to know there are five types of sources. You won’t necessarily talk to all five for every book or story, but categorizing them helps ensure a wide variety of viewpoints.

The five types of sources are primary, secondary, experts, spokespeople, and MOS. They’re explained in detail below.

Let's say you're writing a story about the problem of drinking and driving. You could interview these sources:

Primary

Primary sources are directly involved in the topic. In our scenario, a primary source could be someone who was in a crash caused by a drinking driver. Good questions to ask would include, “How severe were your injuries?” or “How is this crash still affecting you today?”

Secondary

These sources are those people indirectly involved. They have a connection, but they’re not the principal people. For your drinking and driving story you could talk to family members of a DUI victim and might ask "How were you affected?" or "If you could speak to the drinking driver that hit your family member, what would you say?"

Experts

This is self-explanatory—talk to those in the know. In my work as a print and TV reporter, I often accompanied law enforcement officers as they patrolled for drinking drivers. My questions were along the line of “Why did you request this duty?” and “Tell me about a specific crash you investigated.”

Spokespeople

Many organizations have designated spokespeople. They may be called public information officers or public relations representatives. Sometimes they're also known as media relations reps or community relations reps. Whatever their job title, their jobs are the same—to serve as official spokespeople for an organization. So in our scenario we could interview a spokesperson for an anti-DUI organization and ask “What is your organization doing to help curb the problem of drinking and driving?” and “What successes have you had?”

MOS

MOS stands for Man On the Street. (Yes, I know that designation excludes half of humanity. The term is outdated, but it’s still widely used.) MOS sources are people who aren't directly connected with the situation we’re writing about. In our situation, MOS sources have nothing at all to do with drinking and driving. It’s never directly affected them. But no doubt they have an opinion about it. Good questions would be "How big a problem is drinking and driving in our country?” and “What do you think needs to be done about the crime?"

You can readily see how interviewing each of the types of sources, or at least as many as feasible, rounds out your work and gives it depth.