GETTING STARTED
INVESTIGATION ESSENTIALS
- What Makes an Investigation
- Evaluating Evidence and Information Sources
- Get Your Facts Straight: The Basics of Fact-Checking
- Navigating Libraries and Archives for Investigations
- Love people from archives and libraries
- Libraries and archives: what’s the difference?
- Making the most out of reference services
- Newspapers archives: remembering the potential of history
- Digging for treasure: why thematic archives are so important for investigators
- Academic journals: an endless source of empirical evidence
- And finally, are there any other sources?
- Index of libraries and archives
- Resources
- Glossary
- Investigation is Collaboration: How to Make It Work
- Crowdsourcing Evidence for Investigations
INVESTIGATION METHODS
- OSINT – Diving into an ‘Ocean’ of Information
- Search Smarter by Dorking
- Retrieving and Archiving Information from Websites
- How to See What’s Behind a Website
- Using Maps to See Beyond the Obvious
- Geographic information is everywhere
- Collecting evidence from reference maps and photographs
- Visualising datasets in thematic maps
- Drawing, Measuring and Analysing Reference Maps
- Collecting and placing your own data on maps
- Revealing details with satellite imagery
- Using map-based tools in investigations
- Resources
- Glossary
- Data Acquisition for Beginners
- Geolocation Methods: A step by step guide
- What is geolocation and why is it important?
- What sites provide mapping services?
- How can geographic location be determined?
- Case study 1: “Beginner’s level” - Where is that picture located and what is the story behind it?
- Case study 2: “Average level” - Did the Egyptian armored vehicles go to Tobruk?
- Case Study 3: “Advanced level” - Did Russian military equipment reach the city center of Kherson?
- Conclusion
- Resources
- Glossary
IN THE FIELD
- Away From Your Screen, Out in the Field
- Interviews: the Human Element of Your Investigation
- How to Manage Your Sources
- Navigating Sensitive Stories: A Guide to Ethical Engagement with Vulnerable Sources
- Bio-investigations in the field
- What is a bio-investigation?
- Investigate, cook, live
- Regaining control of information in your environment
- Prepare your protocol for samples
- Choosing sampling areas
- Taking soil samples
- Taking water samples
- Monitoring air
- Other markers and data in your environment
- Analyse or share your samples
- Bio-investigation as a community act
- Resources
- Glossary
- Gathering Visual Evidence
DIVING DEEPER
COMMUNICATING INVESTIGATIONS
- All the World’s a Story: Tales From Invisible Populations
- Eight Breakable Rules of Investigative Writing
- 1. “You shall not use the first person in narration”
- 2. “Write in the active voice”
- 3. “Put the most important things at the beginning, preferably in the first paragraph”
- 4. “A story shall always have three parts: a beginning, a middle and an end.”
- 5. “Cover the essential elements of who, what, when, where, how and why. Don’t leave any questions hanging in the air”
- 6. “Avoid lengthy and complicated paragraphs. Keep your writing style as simple as possible, your paragraphs and your sentences short”
- 7. “Dialogue doesn’t belong in investigative reporting”
- 8. “Every piece of investigative writing needs to have a conclusion”
- Draw your own conclusion
- Resources
- Glossary
- The Making of an Anti-biometric Mass Surveillance Campaign