itsual Desk Research
Overview
Desk research gathers and evaluates existing information. Done well, it answers many questions cheaply and focuses primary research on what remains unknown.
When to Use
- Rapid market or competitive context
- Fact-checking and background briefs
- Pre-work before interviews or surveys
- Policy, regulatory, or industry scans
Core Practices
- Clarify the question and “good enough” threshold
- Identify high-yield source types (filings, reports, stats agencies, trade press, academic)
- Triangulate important claims across independent sources
- Date-stamp and quality-rate sources
- Separate facts, estimates, and opinions
- Stop when incremental sources add little new signal
Principles
- Speed with source hygiene beats endless collection
- Primary-sounding blogs are often secondary opinions
- Numbers without methodology are suspect
- Document paths so others can re-check
Verification
- Key claims have sources and dates
- Conflicts between sources are noted
- Output answers the original question directly