Learning Emacs by 'researching emacs' is tricky business especially if you have a deadline and want to be productive asap. There is so much information out there and a lot is incomplete or quickly too advanced.

I prefer video's to learn emacs. This is IMO the best. Tutorials from jekor. I still revisit them once a while (especially ep1-6 are useful). I wish they were available when I started learning emacs..