Experienced social scientists know that textbook descriptions of the research process are at best a sanitized description of the messy reality of what happens when researcher meets data. The neat progression of research question to research hypotheses to research design to data collection to analysis and finally to reporting is not unheard of. But most large, complex research efforts lack this linearity, reflecting the uncertainties, ambiguities, and complexities of the social and political world. The course of research is also tied very closely to the background and experiences the researchers and analysts bring to a project, both on an individual level and on a collective level for group projects or projects rooted in strong institutional settings. Understanding the realities of the research and analysis process itself requires some framework or perspective. Textbooks typically portray research in terms defined by the more positivist approaches to philosophy of science.1 In this essay I turn instead to literatures on persuasion and inter-