THE RESEARCH LIBRARYStudies, insights
Studies, insights
and their sources.
Explore 50 source-checked book studies, 48 writing insights and 163 examples from bestselling books. Compare structure, openings and explanations.
Book studies
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil — John Berendt
- Unbroken — Laura Hillenbrand
- The Power of Positive Thinking — Norman Vincent Peale
- A Brief History of Time — Stephen Hawking
- Freakonomics — Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
- Games People Play — Eric Berne
- Outliers — Malcolm Gladwell
- The Anxious Generation — Jonathan Haidt
- Between the World and Me — Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Women Who Run with the Wolves — Clarissa Pinkola Estés
- The Millionaire Next Door — Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
- Astrophysics for People in a Hurry — Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Blink — Malcolm Gladwell
- The Sea Around Us — Rachel Carson
- The Square and the Tower — Niall Ferguson
- Cosmos — Carl Sagan
- We Were Eight Years in Power — Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Be Fierce — Gretchen Carlson
- The State of Affairs — Esther Perel
- Loving Each Other — Leo F. Buscaglia
- Poverty, by America — Matthew Desmond
- The Hidden Persuaders — Vance Packard
- The Nun's Story — Kathryn Hulme
- I Feel Bad About My Neck — Nora Ephron
- Hunt, Gather, Parent — Michaeleen Doucleff
- Good to Great — Jim Collins
- The Amityville Horror — Jay Anson
- Liar's Poker — Michael Lewis
- In Cold Blood — Truman Capote
- The End of the World Is Just the Beginning — Peter Zeihan
- The Power of Habit — Charles Duhigg
- The Dragons of Eden — Carl Sagan
- The Serviceberry — Robin Wall Kimmerer
- A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church — James Kavanaugh
- Anyone Can Make a Million — Morton Shulman
- Second Tree from the Corner — E. B. White
- The Last Battle — Cornelius Ryan
- On the Road with Charles Kuralt — Charles Kuralt
- How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market — Nicolas Darvas
- The Great Reset — Glenn Beck & Justin Haskins
- RED-HANDED — Peter Schweizer
- Son of the Morning Star — Evan S. Connell
- It Didn't Start with Watergate — Victor Lasky
- My Years with General Motors — Alfred P. Sloan Jr.
- The Fire from Within — Carlos Castaneda
- Incredible Victory — Walter Lord
- Big Agenda — David Horowitz
- Coming into the Country — John McPhee
- At Dawn We Slept — Gordon W. Prange & Donald M. Goldstein & Katherine V. Dillon
- Under the Sea-Wind — Rachel Carson
Writing insights
- One idea, widening circles
- Reveal what a familiar label leaves out
- Let the reader reconstruct the inference
- Find the system behind the behavior
- Change the diagnostic question
- Give the reader a puzzle first
- Return to one concrete scene with a new explanatory job
- Let the ensemble carry time while the central action waits
- Preview a future crisis, rewind, then resume it
- Show what disagreeing sources permit you to say
- Give a sentence a place in the reader’s day
- Give the reader a standard before judging competing accounts
- Let a failed expectation improve the explanation
- Make the case concrete before explaining the framework.
- Teach an entry format before asking readers to browse it
- Return to the same evidence with a new lens
- Make proposed remedies answer the diagnosis
- Let one continuing addressee organize the public argument
- Name the received story and your part in reshaping it
- Turn an abstract distinction into a recurring test
- Carry the same contrasting pair through successive decisions
- Show the document that performs the advice
- Give a compressed chronology explicit time checkpoints
- Make the obvious objection part of the promise
- Demonstrate the analogy before transferring it
- End with a procedure that makes the principle visible
- Make later revisions traceable to earlier claims
- Trace a familiar object through its hidden history
- Place the dated record beside the later interpretation
- Follow a case beyond its apparent ending
- Ask for the reader’s answer before showing other responses
- Give validity and morality separate examinations
- Let a recurring practice organize a life story
- Carry a reported tool into the narrator’s own difficulty
- Offer several levels of entry into a practice
- Turn a metaphor into decisions readers can distinguish
- Give the recap two separate jobs
- Synchronize separate timelines around the same question
- Distinguish the spoken answer from the explanation the hearing excludes
- Give readers parts they can point to.
- Turn the idea into a diagnosis readers can follow.
- Reuse one familiar scale for unfamiliar quantities
- Flag a rule change when the context changes
- Give a collection’s groups their own framing introductions
- Put incompatible assessments close enough to compare
- Close a case with a named counterpart
- Let an encounter carry the story to its next participant
- Hold a scene open while its context changes the next move
Guided comparisons
Reviewed examples
- Reveal what a familiar label leaves out — Poverty, by America
- Reveal what a familiar label leaves out — The Serviceberry
- Reveal what a familiar label leaves out — Be Fierce
- Let the reader reconstruct the inference — Cosmos
- Let the reader reconstruct the inference — Cosmos
- Let the reader reconstruct the inference — How Children Succeed
- Find the system behind the behavior — The Anxious Generation
- Find the system behind the behavior — Poverty, by America
- Find the system behind the behavior — Be Fierce
- Change the diagnostic question — Between Parent and Child
- Change the diagnostic question — Between Parent and Child
- Change the diagnostic question — The State of Affairs
- One idea, widening circles — The Power of Habit
- One idea, widening circles — Think Again
- Give the reader a puzzle first — Blink
- Give the reader a puzzle first — The Power of Habit
- An invitation changes from a prize into a public choice — Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
- The guest list becomes an ensemble update — Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
- Local preoccupations fill the waiting interval — Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
- A suspended raft attack returns after the chronological rewind — Unbroken
- Incompatible weights remain visible — Unbroken
- A published error is distinguished from a reported correction — Unbroken
- Move the instructor’s sentence onto everyday objects — The Power of Positive Thinking
- Return from a wallet card to a stated daily rehearsal — The Power of Positive Thinking
- Two criteria, followed by a theory that survives as an approximation — A Brief History of Time
- A rejected theory still earns the stated scientific standard — A Brief History of Time
- The preferred proposal returns to the same criterion — A Brief History of Time
- The Earth analogy does not determine the direction of disorder — A Brief History of Time
- A fine creates the problem that the taxonomy must explain — Freakonomics
- The answer pattern is accompanied by reasons it is suspicious — Freakonomics
- A plausible objection changes the follow-up comparison — Freakonomics
- The boss and the foot soldier do not want the same thing — Freakonomics
- One marriage case teaches the analysis fields — Games People Play
- Advice refused, then the purpose of the exchange reconsidered — Games People Play
- From a calendar cutoff to unequal practice — Outliers
- The same hockey goals, with birthdays in place of names — Outliers
- A cockpit exchange read again after communication distinctions — Outliers
- The two-sided diagnosis sets the agenda before the evidence — The Anxious Generation
- The school proposal names the earlier harms it is meant to alter — The Anxious Generation
- A participation threshold changes the cost of holding out — The Anxious Generation
- The anticipated gaming parallel becomes a conditional account — The Anxious Generation
- The later application keeps the revised distinction — The Anxious Generation
- The son’s fifteenth year supplies the occasion — Between the World and Me
- The same chair changes whom the narrator identifies with — Between the World and Me
- The person addressed also changes the remembered scene — Between the World and Me
- After the interview, the ending returns to the son — Between the World and Me
- Vasilisa’s story becomes a nine-task reading — Women Who Run with the Wolves
- The gilded carriage returns as an interpreted trap — Women Who Run with the Wolves
- Manawee is introduced as an expanded gift — Women Who Run with the Wolves
- A received core is separated from its development — Women Who Run with the Wolves
- A benchmark becomes a classification system — The Millionaire Next Door
- North and South answer the same budget question — The Millionaire Next Door
- Stuart asks dealers for comparable quotations — The Millionaire Next Door
- An elapsed-time refrain separates rapidly changing conditions — Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
- A known planet becomes a limited signal — Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
- An intriguing signal still needs competing interpretations — Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
- Success, failure, and trainability become three obligations — Blink
- An improv scene explains structured spontaneity — Blink
- A screen changes what the judges can evaluate — Blink
- An early estimate and a later estimate remain separately visible — The Sea Around Us
- The later note reverses what is surprising about sediment depth — The Sea Around Us
- A wave’s imagined journey becomes an observer’s cautious inference — The Sea Around Us
- Recovered objects constrain a story of a submerged landscape — The Sea Around Us
- Establish the events before the analytical return — The Square and the Tower
- Explain the familiar rise and collapse with the new distinctions — The Square and the Tower
- A small discrepancy changes the orbit — Cosmos
- An apple pie acquires a stellar history — Cosmos
- The estimate changes when civilization lifetime changes — Cosmos
- A reporting omission is named before the essay returns — We Were Eight Years in Power
- Separate the source debt from the weak explanatory section — We Were Eight Years in Power
- Employment, housing and prison change one another’s consequences — We Were Eight Years in Power
- The record-keeping instruction becomes an incident log — Be Fierce
- A fictional complaint letter reveals the choices inside the advice — Be Fierce
- Secrecy and repeat relationships shape the complaint process — Be Fierce
- A marriage-defect search becomes a question about identity — The State of Affairs
- Luke revisits an intervention he initially resented — The State of Affairs
- An achieved union is reopened three years later — The State of Affairs
- Complete the same questions before reading the returns — Loving Each Other
- Write a definition before meeting a range of alternatives — Loving Each Other
- A profit comparison is rebuilt after the cost objection — Poverty, by America
- Why not move or buy is answered through constraints — Poverty, by America
- The argument is gathered into three mechanisms — Poverty, by America
- The closing synthesis pairs remedies with diagnosed conditions — Poverty, by America
- Campaign persuasion must confront the ability to withhold support — The Hidden Persuaders
- The inquiry examines the methods behind its own cases — The Hidden Persuaders
- Earlier practices return as questions about a protected value — The Hidden Persuaders
- The requested sacrifice reveals a condition on consent — The Nun's Story
- The same smile changes meaning after recovery — The Nun's Story
- Changing kitchen authorities mark changing standards — I Feel Bad About My Neck
- Books and reading places carry a selective autobiography — I Feel Bad About My Neck
- Feeling at home elsewhere changes the story of the old apartment — I Feel Bad About My Neck
- A bakery scene precedes TEAM’s formal explanation — Hunt, Gather, Parent
- A question used in fieldwork becomes a home trial — Hunt, Gather, Parent
- Try It 6 offers a cautious start before fuller adoption — Hunt, Gather, Parent
- Darwin Smith supplies the two traits before their local definition — Good to Great
- The bus makes the people-before-direction sequence explicit — Good to Great
- The same image distinguishes reassignment from removal — Good to Great
- The Hedgehog recap separates the model from surprises — Good to Great
- Align the two sides of an unanswered call — The Amityville Horror
- Compare relief and fear after the flight — The Amityville Horror
- A counterchallenge becomes legible after the rules — Liar's Poker
- The customer’s alternatives connect manners with market power — Liar's Poker
- A cheap replacement inherits a more competitive market — Liar's Poker
- The repeated conversation reveals a concealed fabrication — In Cold Blood
- A qualified clinical account is kept outside the depicted answer — In Cold Blood
- No stated opinion is followed by an explicitly unheard explanation — In Cold Blood
- A driveway depends on more than its owner — The End of the World Is Just the Beginning
- A farmer cannot add another harvest shift — The End of the World Is Just the Beginning
- The loop has three inspectable roles — The Power of Habit
- An odor problem its owner does not notice — The Power of Habit
- The cookie is one possible explanation — The Power of Habit
- One year supplies a common quantitative frame — The Dragons of Eden
- The same calendar makes recency a question to explain — The Dragons of Eden
- Make the library equivalent’s intermediate choices visible — The Dragons of Eden
- The filling bucket becomes a question about material flows — The Serviceberry
- The full bucket returns when scarcity becomes the question — The Serviceberry
- The original farm supplies a qualification to the contrast — The Serviceberry
- Passing a book becomes a test of neighborhood and civic sharing — The Serviceberry
- Explain why the bad sermon keeps recurring — A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church
- Return to the counsel that caused the reported burden — A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church
- The gain survives, but the tip’s rationale does not — Anyone Can Make a Million
- The commodity chapter explicitly reverses the stock rule — Anyone Can Make a Million
- Identify the poem whose premise was overtaken — Second Tree from the Corner
- The berries change what the speaker does — Second Tree from the Corner
- Introduce the zoo through a problem of care — The Last Battle
- Return when the surrounding system fails — The Last Battle
- Resolve the survival question after the battle — The Last Battle
- Frame ordinary service before two different local portraits — On the Road with Charles Kuralt
- Introduce transmission, then let two practices show its different forms — On the Road with Charles Kuralt
- A loss changes what the first win meant — How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market
- A useful input survives a failed prediction rule — How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market
- The final action is the working routine — How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market
- A quoted 2020 joke becomes the target of the revision — The Great Reset
- Separate the channels before specifying restrictions — RED-HANDED
- Make the hidden-interest diagnosis answerable by disclosure — RED-HANDED
- Reno as coward, prudent soldier and condition of survival — Son of the Morning Star
- A categorical drunkenness accusation meets incompatible testimony — Son of the Morning Star
- The subject’s dramatic story conflicts with his own animal chronology — Son of the Morning Star
- A counterpart frames and closes the local comparison — It Didn't Start with Watergate
- A chapter closes with a conditional comparison — It Didn't Start with Watergate
- A chapter closes on two outcomes and a stated difference — It Didn't Start with Watergate
- The failed engine program changes who owns the problem — My Years with General Motors
- A 1923 proposal remains distinct from the successful institution — My Years with General Motors
- A cautionary letter does not become a claim of foreseeing the Depression — My Years with General Motors
- Repair the picture the learner actually formed — The Fire from Within
- Revise the expectation that seeing produces understanding — The Fire from Within
- From the releasing pilot to the carrier’s response — Incredible Victory
- A submarine approach becomes a sequence of recognition, damage and rescue — Incredible Victory
- Six kinds of support for the carrier’s probable identity — Incredible Victory
- Three remembered ships become a sequence of transfers — Incredible Victory
- An amended mission statement gives the recommendation exact words — Big Agenda
- The bear keeps grazing while the context expands — Coming into the Country
- Cook’s reputation does not collapse into one portrait — Coming into the Country
- A capital proposal exposes incompatible priorities — Coming into the Country
- Put an American warning beside the developing Japanese plan — At Dawn We Slept
- Make shallow-water torpedoes the shared question — At Dawn We Slept
- Explain why one disputed translation is used — At Dawn We Slept
- Stop where two recollections cannot be reconciled — At Dawn We Slept
- Hear the objections before authority closes the debate — At Dawn We Slept
- Keep the reasons for and against withdrawal visible — At Dawn We Slept
- An island’s encounters carry attention across the food web — Under the Sea-Wind
- Scomber’s pursuers become the next pursued group — Under the Sea-Wind
- The waiting eels lead into the coast’s longer cycle — Under the Sea-Wind