Late at night--and fiction research

Tonight, I am lying in bed just after working all day from 11 am to 10 pm, exercising, checking writing blogs, checking work certifications, reading depressing e-mails, and wondering what the bloodseas happened to my day.

And now...research. I'm not 100% good at it. I'm glad I went to New York, so I have a picture in my head of the streets where my protagonist finally tracks down that escaped murderer. I should have taken down street names, but I could argue (in my laziness) that they distract from the action of the story. I feel the same way about science research. For myself, I think the author should know the science behind the science fiction well enough that they COULD write an appendix about it, but I should not spend a hundred years telling us how the fiction works. "Geez Jen, why do I need to know how to build a neodymium mace?" Right.

That said--I should do my homework. Part of J.R.R. Tolkein's talent lies in the appendices: he had so much world-building he did not have to work into the story, but the story seems richer, realer, and more seamless because he KNEW more about the characters and the worlds. No holes. It's like when you go in to defend your thesis: you should know more than you put into the paper.

I've heard it's good to go sit in a location and muse for a while, for research, or to conduct interviews of people in certain situations. Personally, I research by pretending I'm as ignorant or knowledgable as the character. I stayed up late last night googling how to treat a bullet wound because one of my teenagers finds himself with a superhero unwilling to go the hospital after a bullet to the shoulder-blade. I did what he did. I looked up the problem, pretending I had nothing with which to fix it. I also talk to my characters during the day, so my dialogue often works when my stupid descriptions don't. I should probably sit in places and note details to practice descriptions.

How do you research?