Oftentimes there exists within us preconceived notions.
I had my own about what it meant for a candidate or their campaign to be
positive or negative. One of the things I learned about research was that it
can change those notions. In fact, to decide positivity or negativity, I had to
quantify and quality those traits based on candidate’s website. I also learned
that sometimes your source material is guaranteed to be permanent, and so you
have to catch it while you can.
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| A screenshot of Gov. O'Malley's presidential campaign website |
Another research lesson I learned is that it is
important to pre-plan. It’s important to have more than just a notion of what
you’re going to research, whether you’re collecting data off of a website, or
conducting interviews, you want to have a thorough plan. Part of having a
thorough plan is committing to meet in person with the people you are working
with to work out and talk about what the group wants to do and how they want to
do it in detail.
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| A little last minute practice and equipment-check |
On the reporting side, things were interesting as
well. I learned that you have to remember to get people’s emails when you email
them, no matter who they are or what the situation is. It helps to validate and
verify the source later on. The other lesson I’m still learning is that you
just have to be able to approach people and try to talk to them. Some of them
are going to say they don’t want to talk to you. They might not think you’re
credentials are valid enough, or they just might not want their name in print
or on the internet. But when you get that no, you just have to keep on going and
go along to the next person and get the interviews you need.
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