Here at Journalist’s Resource, we love research. Early in our careers, however, we as individual journalists didn’t always appreciate the value of research or interpret it correctly. We did not always use the best study to make a point or fact-check a claim. Learn from our mistakes. Here are some things we wish we knew years ago.

1. Academic research is one of the best reporting tools around.

Running for office in the United States is an expensive affair. Whether candidates are seeking a job in the White House or the Wisconsin statehouse, they must raise vast sums to be competitive.

A new study looks at how special education students and students who are learning English spend the summer. Researchers want to understand why some children forget what they learned while they are away from school.

In the 1987 movie “Suspect,” Dennis Quaid plays a lobbyist so desperate to get votes for a bill supporting milk producers in his home state that he sleeps with a congresswoman.

That was just a movie. But special interests in Washington D.C., still buy access and influence to broker deals behind closed doors. They leave journalists a few crumbs to follow, but we need to know where to look.

Each year as the weather warms, crowds of families and tourists flock to the beaches. People sometimes don’t realize the risk they take when they enter the ocean, a vast aquatic habitat. Newsrooms in coastal communities are well aware that when humans and wildlife interact, the results can be tragic – especially when sharks make an appearance. Even a minor run-in with a shark can send someone to the emergency room for surgery and stitches.