Research Errata

I'm currently going through citations collected by another research assistant. I'm also taking some time to add in new citations, and the process makes me think: how can we determine the search parameters of a previous person?

The answer seems obvious: from the results. I think it goes deeper, though. There's a kind of looking backward that puts you into that other person's head for a minute. Why did she choose this article? Did she overlook this other one, or did she just think it wasn't helpful? Which articles have been published since she worked on this?

I'm also getting into my professor's head a bit. Even though she encourages me to gather all I can, I'm trying to use what I know of the shape of her book to gather items that would be most helpful. Sometimes I come across something I think might give her a new insight - it will be very interesting to see what comes of those. She also encourages me to use the articles for my own research, which I deeply appreciate.