MC Research

Step 1 – Understanding Your Position

  • Understand your committee. If you google the name, the website with the committee’s jurisdiction will come up.
  • Understand your political party.
    http://www.diffen.com/difference/Democrat_vs_Republican
  • Understand your congressperson’s position. Look at the representative(s) from your state in your committee and check their website or go to http://www.ontheissues.org/
  • You might not have one specific person. If that’s the case, this is what your position will be:
  1. MOST important: your party
  2. your state’s senators
  3. congresspeople who have dealt with similar topics before

 

Step 2: Understanding Your topic

  • Read your topic brief carefully! Keep an eye out for:
    • important people and organizations
    • sub-issues
    • possible solutions page
    • key info that could help you argue/come up with more solutions
  • Look up your topic with the word “brief” after it. You might be able to find summaries on your issue. For example:
    • google: “obesity epidemic brief,” and you might get something like this.
  • Find out what’s happening with your issue and what people think about it. Most websites have a political leaning, so be wary of this. Some popular news sites and magazines from each side:
  • If you find a website that you’d like to use but you’re not sure which way it leans, google the website’s name with “allsides” after it. You should be able to find a webpage that describes its political leaning. You can also try to look it up on www.allsides.org, however navigating that website is a little tricky.

 

Step 3: Research Solutions and Arguments!