REST, API - confusion

[eluser]tinawina[/eluser]
Before I get too far into my project..., I have a couple of questions about the best way to go about architecting our site. I've written about my project in this forum before. In a nutshell, we are putting together a site that archives research works (reports, data sets, etc.) and let's people login and post comments about works, tag them, save them to their own personal research library, etc.

In the end we want to make sure that our resources are easy to access and share not only through our site, RSS feeds and e-newsletters, but also through mashups that others might want to do.

I've been reading about REST and I find it confusing. Some people say use nouns to describe resources and move people through your site:

www.oursite.org/research/listing/the-name-of-a-report

Others say verbs are required:

www.oursite.org/research/getListing/the-name-of-a-report

I must confess, I have no idea why one way would be better than the other. Throw in API and mashup and I get really lost. Does anyone have a way to think about this or a process to use to figure out the best way forward? Especially given that I'm def using CI/OOP/MVC? Thanks for any insight!