In an edited version of an address to a conference held in Utrecht on ‘Improving Research Methodology’, the author seeks to draw general lessons from his experience over fifteen years in working on comparative projects on the law of immovable property. Lessons are sought in three broad areas, choice of jurisdiction, terminology and overcoming methodological differences. All comparison is functional, but guidance is provided on what this means in practice in relation to methodological differences in the approach to facts, in securing comparable texts form legal systems of different size and differing greatly in the degree of churn within the system, and how to overcome formulaic responses in the search for a readable narrative. The author proposes a golden rule of comparison, that a satisfactory questionnaire can only be drafted when its author knows all the answers.

中文翻译：

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起草（和重新起草）比较财产调查表

在乌特勒支举行的关于“改进研究方法论”的会议上，演讲的编辑版是作者，他从过去15年从事不动产法律比较项目的经验中汲取了一般性的教训。我们在三个主要领域中寻求经验教训：管辖权的选择，术语和克服方法上的差异。所有的比较都是有效的，但是提供了指导，说明了在实践中与事实处理方法的差异有关的意义，在确保可比较的文本形成规模不同，法律制度搅动程度不同的法律体系方面的意义。在寻求可读的叙述时克服公式化的回答。作者提出了比较的黄金法则，