Go Everywhere Research Method
Follow every lead until overlooked sources reveal distinctive evidence
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 96%
Begin by identifying the important questions that public records and existing accounts have not answered. Search formal archives, but do not assume the best evidence resides in official institutions. Map the subject’s wider network, including colleagues, technicians, campaign workers, former employees, and other peripheral participants who may preserve forgotten documents or revealing memories. Conduct repeated interviews with central figures so trust and specificity accumulate over time. Treat each conversation as a source of additional leads, then pursue those leads even when their expected value appears modest. The mechanism is cumulative: broad exploration increases the number of possible discoveries, while archival evidence and interviews validate one another. The output is original, defensible material rather than a new interpretation of familiar facts.
Origin
Extracted from Masters in Business through Sebastian Mallaby’s account of five years researching Alan Greenspan in archives, offices, cabins, and private collections.
Core principles
- 01Distinctive work requires previously unknown information
- 02Unexpected sources often hold the strongest evidence
- 03Interviews become more valuable after archival preparation
- 04Persistence creates opportunities for luck
How to run it
- 1
Define the Unknowns
List the consequential questions that existing books, articles, and public records leave unanswered. Use those gaps to direct the investigation.
Pro tip Prioritize gaps that could materially change the accepted picture of the subject.
Watch out Do not mistake a fresh opinion about known facts for a genuine discovery.
- 2
Search Formal Archives
Visit relevant institutional and presidential archives and inspect contemporaneous documents. Trace connections across administrations, campaigns, organizations, and time periods.
Pro tip Search around the subject’s associates as well as under the subject’s own name.
Watch out Official archives may omit campaign records and privately retained documents.
- 3
Map Peripheral Witnesses
Identify people adjacent to the subject, including former staff, technicians, colleagues, and advisers. Interview them for both firsthand context and leads to surviving material.
Pro tip Ask explicitly whether they retained speeches, memos, correspondence, or notes.
Watch out Do not dismiss a source because their formal role appears minor.
- 4
Build Repeated Access
Return to central sources with increasingly informed questions. Sustained interviews can surface documents and memories that a single meeting would not reveal.
Pro tip Let archival discoveries shape each subsequent interview.
Watch out Access does not remove the need to corroborate the subject’s account.
- 5
Pursue Every Lead
Follow promising references into private collections and unexpected locations. Accept that many trips will produce little while a few transform the project.
Pro tip Budget time for speculative leads whose value cannot be known in advance.
Watch out Do not fabricate certainty when a discovery remains uncorroborated.
- 6
Triangulate the Evidence
Compare interviews, archival records, private documents, and public actions. Use agreement and contradiction among sources to construct the final account.
Pro tip Preserve provenance for every significant claim.
Watch out A vivid anecdote is not sufficient evidence by itself.
In the wild
Mallaby visited the technician who had operated computers for Greenspan’s consulting company, expecting only cultural detail. The technician instead possessed roughly three hundred pages of Greenspan speeches from his Ayn Rand period, including a transcript describing his worldview at age thirty-eight.
→ A peripheral interview yielded primary evidence about Greenspan’s early intellectual development.
Mallaby interviewed Pat Buchanan because Buchanan and Greenspan had both participated in Nixon’s campaign. Buchanan then revealed a private basement collection containing campaign memos, including Greenspan’s economic, polling, and political advice to Nixon.
→ The documents exposed a political side of Greenspan that his technocratic public image obscured.
Common mistakes
Searching Only Official Collections
Important campaign papers, speeches, and private records may remain with individuals rather than reaching institutional archives.
Interviewing Only Famous Participants
Peripheral witnesses may preserve better documents and provide less rehearsed perspectives than the central figure.
Stopping at Existing Interpretations
Reframing generally known facts may create commentary, but it does not provide the distinctiveness of original evidence.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for investigative journalists, biographers, historians, and authors pursuing original evidence.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for rapid commentary, deadline-driven summaries, or projects without access to primary sources.
From the transcript
“you've got to put on the table information that people didn't have before.”
“And you just have to go everywhere and hope you find stuff”
“there's no substitute for discovering new stuff.”
From the episode
Interview With Sebastian Mallaby: Masters in Business (Audio)
Sebastian Mallaby