In Stallybrass’s quote, he is really discussing exactly what research should be. Research is about learning about a topic and expanding upon it. You are not researching if you are relying on your own thoughts, but making a hypothesis. To truly understand a topic, you must read and learn as much as you can about it before making your own assumptions (educated assumptions, mind you) about it. To this research project, it speaks to how we must know our topic as much as we can before formulating opinions on our subjects. He also goes further to state that we are unable to think something about a topic unless we learn about it, because the ability to think about it means we must know something about the subject. Research is not truly about originality, but learning something someone else already may know and applying it to your own life.