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Keep in Mind:
When starting out research in Profiles, here are a couple of things to remember:
- Ask questions if you are uncertain about anything.
- Most candidates are already in our database and will therefore already have some information.
- Check the information against what the candidate has most recently given us. Follow the general rule that more is better (e.g. if a nickname is in the database but not on the new bio info, leave it in). Bio data should only be removed if it is a duplicate entry, really vague, or a reputable source has proven the information to be incorrect.
- Do not abbreviate anything, even if typing it out seems redundant or unnecessary. If an acronym is more commonly known, use the written-out version and put the acronym in parentheses afterwards.
- If you cannot read something or need help, never hesitate to ask someone for a second opinion.
- For all current positions use "present" with a lower-case "p" rather than "Present" or "current."
- Example: Representative, United States House of Representatives, 1996-present.
- If you are unable to verify if a candidate still holds a position or when they may have stopped holding it, delete the span and click 'Save.'
- If there are no years listed, do not assume that the membership is 'present.' Only use "present" if a candidate has specifically listed it as a current position.
- All years should be written out in full.
- Example: correct: 1985-1989 incorrect: 1985-89.
- SAVE YOUR CHANGES - if you forget this, it's like you didn't do the work.
Develop a Process
Like most departments at Vote Smart, developing your research process is essential for thoroughness, accuracy, and speed. Below, you will find a detailed description of some steps you should take during the development of your process as well as some tricks and tips.
Step 1: Research the candidate exhaustively
Search for any website or social media outlet the candidate may have.Standard Searches:
- (candidate's name) for (state) (office)
- (candidate's name) for (state) (office) (district)
- (candidate's name) for (state) (office) Facebook
- (candidate's name) (state) (office) campaign
When you find a site, create a new tab by right-clicking the link and selecting “Open Link in New Tab.” Go about 5 pages into Google's search for each.
Notes:
- The most important websites to find, in terms of information, are campaign/official websites, Facebook, and Linkedin. The best way to identify if a candidate has a Linkedin is if they write something like “Candidate for Michigan House of Representatives” at the top. Otherwise, you will have to cross reference experiences (most often the case) or compare photos.
- Ballotpedia can be a good starting point to find viable addresses in one place (they normally get this research done quicker than we move toward this research, so this is a good place to begin research) - however, be sure to still vet these addresses to ensure their accuracy. Ballotpedia can also provide a reference with SecondarySources
- Don't forget about Webmail, which can usually be found on a candidate's website under some variation of 'Contact' or 'Contact Me/Us'
- Additionally, sometimes in 'Contact' sections, a candidate will provide an email and/or phone number that isn't provided by a Secretary of State site.
- The same goes for Facebook: you'll tend to find a lot of additional emails/phone numbers under a Facebook's 'About' page.
- For past candidates, you can reference our past address research to see if any past addresses are still active, and can be entered for the current campaign.
Step 2: Inputting the data
- If the candidate does have a LinkedIn and you can confirm that it is theirs, start at the top when inputting data. Make sure you go all the way to the very bottom of each person's LinkedIn page. Not all LinkedIn pages are the same, so some are longer than others and we don't want to miss collecting any volunteer or organizational experiences. Also, if there is already a lot of data previously entered into our database, go through LinkedIn to find 'years' for that data or to update information.
- The next most specific source is generally a campaign/official website's 'About' page. Almost every candidate with a website will have an 'About' page. Sometimes the data will be listed, but most of the time it will be in an annoying paragraph format. You will have to carefully read through this information to pick out the relevant information we need to add to our database. As with LinkedIn, look for any information we can use to update/correct previously entered data.
- Most likely, the last source of data you will check is Facebook. About half the time, candidate's will have information on their Facebook under the 'About' section. Read through this information and collect what is relevant. Other information that Facebook might have are: Religion, Birth Date, favorite quote, favorite book, etc..
- 'Additional Information,' which is the second tab of a bio in admin, will most often be found in a Facebook's bio page, so just pay attention to that possibility.
- The manner/order in which you input data is important. You will be most accurate if you stick to a standardized way of going through a candidate's bio information and entering it into admin. The best way is to start at the top of a page and work your way towards the bottom. Sometimes, some data will scream at you right away, but if you go straight to it, you may miss something more obscure, but equally important.
Step 3: Vetting Your Own Work
- Start by looking at the candidate's admin page and begin scanning for formatting errors. Commonly, the 'Family' section will be formatted incorrectly (Married; John; 3 children; John, Jacob rather than Husband: John; 3 Children). Another is the 'Gender' category. It is often left blank ('Unknown') initially and it will be up to you to update that.
- Next, if there was already data entered for a candidate, make sure to go through and cat/tag data as you see fit. Most of the previous bio's were only sporadically catted/tagged, or not at all.
- Do a final scan of a website/Facebook to see if you notice something you missed.
- Lastly, double-check your work in admin, along with checking our live website to ensure any and all entered data is displaying correctly, and there aren't any spelling/formatting errors.
Overall:
Bios are all about creating a strategy/routine for 1) finding all the data, 2) inputting it accurately, and 3) doing it quickly. And, just like the wiki says, that order is important. As you do more bios, you will get faster naturally and develop your own routine. The order above is just a guideline. As you get more observant you will naturally just do things as you see them, but it helps initially to do things very structurally so that you can focus on one step of creating a bio at a time.
Policy on Removing Candidate Information From the Website:
It is common to get calls from candidates asking us to take down their information. As a general policy, we do not do this. The information is public and we are under no obligation to take information off of our website. However, there are certain exceptions to this policy. If a candidate asks us to take down family information for a legitimate reason, we can oblige. Before taking information off of the site, the Elections Director needs to give final approval.
