Research stories

Tell me about any research- good or bad experiences, for school or otherwise- that you've done in the past. Where did you start? Where did you get stuck? How did you know when you were done?

I remember in the 10th grade when I had to do a research project on the Code of Hammarabi for World Histroy. We could pick a topic from any chapter in our text book and I found the Code of Hammarabi to be very entertaining. For those that dont know, the Code of Hammarabi is an old kind of legislative system that had a list of hundreds of law. For example, an eye for an eye, and an arm for an arm was the way they dealed with criminal situation. For my project I decided to reasearch some of the more radical laws. I brought in props like gooey halloween eye balls and fake bloody arms. I figured it would be easy to research and talk about these laws. However, I began to get stuck when i really couldn't find much information that went deeply into the laws. The descriptions were very basic. I guess you could say there really wasnt enough information. I had to come up with the prop tool to extend my research presentation, however it failed miserably. I got a horrible grade and looked like an idiot in front of my whole class. I guess i learned that when picking a research topic, make sure there is enough information on the topic.