1. Frame the question

Write a one-sentence hypothesis and list what would falsify it. Example: “Company X received preferential contracts after donations” — falsified if timelines or open bidding disprove causality.

2. Entity normalization

• Legal names, former names, “doing business as.”
• Jurisdiction of formation vs. jurisdiction of operation.
• Assign internal IDs in your spreadsheet (E1, E2) to avoid merge errors.

3. Source ladder

1. Primary: Registries, court filings, SEC/FEC raw data.
2. Secondary: Agency press releases, IG reports.
3. Journalism: Named sources, documents cited.
4. Excluded: Anonymous forums, unverified leaks without corroboration plan.

4. Timeline

Every money or contract event gets UTC date, source URL, confidence. Align with elections, votes, and personnel changes only with explicit dates.

5. Output

• Entity table + edge list (optional) + narrative with citations.
• Limitations paragraph (missing filings, sealed records, redacted contracts).

Related skills

corporate-intelligence-investigator, network-analysis-specialist, public-records-research-specialist