Research- useful or useless?

How much time do you put into researching a new plot idea? Do you check your facts ?

After a recent discussion with avid readers, I am under the impression that many writers are no longer putting in the time to research.

When writing a book during one of the World Wars, saying the main character is curently in Europe, does not help the reader picture the characters surroundings.
Yes, this is from an actual book, the writer does not state if the character is in France, Russia, Germany or even Britian. Most readers know the big differences between those countries, language being one and food being the other.
So the question was asked of me by the reader of this book, "Do you research?"

Yes, as much as a fly by the seat of my pants writer as I am. I still do research. One of my current characters was from Roman times, so I took the time to research names and worked out what would be suitable for that time period.

When setting is questioned, do you as a writer name a country, state, city, county, shire or town? Country, varies greatly from coast to mountains, saying it snows might be rather incorrect, unless you know 100% of the country receives snow. 
Sure making up our own town or city is fun, allows us control of what gets built, what type of people live/work there and how big it is, but we also need to add the details that count.  How far is it from the main/large city, it can be as vague as an hour north east of Christchurch. Or as detailed as fifteen kilometres from Christchurch while heading down the main highway.

Not knowing where to picture a character can and has broken readers from their enjoyment of the book.

Customs, different here, different there and different everywhere. Unless you are putting your characters in a country you know very well, getting customs correct will take loads of research. Getting them wrong will increase your chance of getting letters written about that big mistake.

One thing I found in a book was someone driving a car, the make/model was one that had never been sold by that name before, rather popular in the country it was written in but not widely sold under that name elsewhere. So those Australian writers out there Holden is only sold in Australia, in Britian it has another name so dont call it Holden when they are driving around London. 

Guns, killing and poisons. Mysteries, horror and thrillers. Yes those three things in those three genres can cause many readers to roll their eyes and exclaim the writer never did their research. Shooting seven people when you only have a gun that shoots six rounds will be noticed, commented on and giggled about by men. Killing someone, rather easy task when it comes down to it but the details need to be correct. A women holding down a six foot man to choke him to death in most minds is not realistic UNLESS he is duct taped to the chair/bed/table.
Poison, most sadly are not one hit wonders, can cause vomiting and don't take seconds to work.

Putting in extra time, I wont kid you or try to make it seem a breeze to do, is worth it.  The devil is in the details, for a writer to mess up small details when a few hours research would have fixed the problem, is basically being lazy.

Reseach can be fun, and usually will allow you to have a better grounding for your plots. Plus there will always be something you find during the search that will aid you down the line.

My own tip, ALWAYS make sure you explain to others when using a forum that you are writing a book! Or else they will assume this problem is happening to a friend or to you.

We have resources listed on our site, libraries are great, online forums can help too. Sometimes just calling a buisness that deals with that topic can give you great information.

But to not research just opens you up to needing to defend your novel.