Every few weeks, you’ll see or hear a new story about some research done by experts that supposedly have discovered something amazing, such as:

• Participation in community organizations is down.
• Kids eat a lot of junk food.
• Traffic congestion is bad in urban areas.
• Folks are worried about their jobs.

You might think to yourself that we hardly needed experts to tell us this! We can look around our own communities and see that it is getting harder and harder to get our friends and neighbors involved and engaged. And we clearly know more about how our children are doing in school, how the police treat us and who is getting sick than the experts do. We know more than anyone what is really going on in our lives.

So, why is it that when a pollster or an academic writes a book or releases a study, the media pays attention, but when we say what we know, nobody wants to take it seriously? Do we have to be full-time researchers to know about our own lives and communities? Clearly, we should not have to get a fancy degree. But, to be taken seriously, we need to do some of the things that “researchers” do.

1. Capture your own story: Sometimes things happen that seem significant, but later on, we can’t quite remember exactly what happened. The first step in being taken seriously is to write down the details as if we were reporters: When? Where? Who did what? Who said what (to whom)? What happened next? The details add credibility. For example, you are much more authoritative if you can say “At 2:14 p.m. on Monday, January 14, such and such happened,” as compared to “Sometime a month or two ago, I think that something like such and such happened.”

I have lived in a neighborhood for seven years and last year, it seemed to me that auto accidents were always happening at a particular corner. I even noticed that because of high bushes, it was hard to see cars coming and when I stopped, I had to pull out to see if the way was clear. I sort of thought that the highway department or somebody should do something about it, but I didn’t know who was responsible so I didn’t do anything. So in November, I started keeping a list of the accidents. There weren’t as many as I had thought, but there were several.

2. Share stories: Tell others what you have noted. It may be that you are the only one who ever had that particular problem, or wondered about that particular thing. But it is more likely that others have thought about it too. Sharing your story will get others thinking and will get them sharing what they know.

One day in January, I mentioned my concern about accidents at the intersection to a neighbor who said that she noticed the same thing. We started comparing notes. It turned out that she knew about some accidents in the months before I started keeping my list.

3. Collect Stories: You can start with your own experience, but your story will have a lot more impact if you can combine and compare your story with many others. If one person loses a job to foreign competition, that’s unfortunate. If a thousand lose their jobs, it’s a tragedy. If a million lose their jobs, it’s a political issue. If a million lose their jobs and work together to get them back, it’s a movement.

With our combined list, we raised the issue at a neighborhood meeting. Two other people said that they were concerned about another intersection not far away. But we still didn’t know what to do.

4. Seek help with the technical stuff: Sometimes, there are scientific or legal issues that you can’t unpack completely by yourself. Try to find the people who might have more knowledge to add to or help interpret the picture. There are many places to go for help:
• Private help: In many communities, there are organizations that focus on different kinds of problems and have learned a lot over the years. For example, health groups know about health issues. PTAs know about schools. Our doctor, a school counselor or friend may be able to help us find somebody who knows a lot about our particular interest.

For this problem with the auto accidents, we could contact our community federation of neighborhood associations, or we could call the Automobile Association.

• Public help: Part of what our public agencies and elected officials are supposed to do is to help us solve our problems. They can get public agencies to put their expertise and knowledge to work for us. What’s more, they have the power to make our problems a priority.

For this problem with the auto accidents, we might have called our local highway or traffic departments, or we could call our city councilor or county supervisor.

• Expert help: Local colleges, community colleges, or libraries often have people connected with them that know a lot. They can help us learn about the issues involved in our situation and help us connect to expert resources.

For this case with the bad intersection, an expert could help us determine if the number and types of accidents were really unusual. They might also know about technical issues such as laws regulating shrubs at intersections, and funds to improve the traffic flow.

5. Turn your research into action. Ask —
• Who can do something about this?
• What are some of the things that can be done?
• When can something be done?
• What are the barriers to action?
• What can I/we do to make this go faster?

The bottom line is that just being around and noticing things is data-gathering. Noticing things in an organized way, writing it down, sharing it with others, and testing our ideas is research. Knowing how we would use the information makes it action-research, the very best kind for organizing.