Tools for Analysis

Welcome to the Washington Outsider's Tools for Analysis page!  

When watching the news or reading a newspaper article, we are often expected to trust the validity of the opinions and other assertions that the professionals featured in these news reports make without understanding the assumptions and methodology that resulted in these conclusions.  

Just consider how two people might look at the exact same facts and come up with two opposing conclusions that are both correct to some degree.  This apparent contradiction is explained by the fact that every individual has his or her own perspective, which has been developed over a lifetime of personal, educational, and professional experiences. 

That said, analysts do not simply rely on their own perspectives or even the facts.  What analysts learn to do is view information through different perspectives and best-fit models that allow them to interpret information in a more consistent, accurate manner.  

This “intellectual architecture,” which might be called many things including a philosophy, worldview, mode of thought etc., comes from the shaping of one’s thinking through training and other experiences as an individual learns how new information relates to already known information. 


Using highly applicable intellectual architectures, analysts are able to more effectively acquire, process, and utilize vast amounts of new information.  In fact, our primary education system, which is largely based in scientific thinking, actually gives students the intellectual architecture necessary to comprehend our world with varying degrees of objectivity and function in our globalized society.  

When individuals are lacking the intellectual architecture needed to understand complex issues or two individuals are utilizing two incompatible worldviews, they cannot effectively comprehend and address issues that affect them or come to a viable resolution.


Consequently, the Washington Outsider is dedicated to provide our visitors with the analytical tools used in our blog posts, so you can better understand how particular conclusions fit in a broader understanding of the world.  More importantly, we hope to provide our visitors with tools that you can use to better interpret the news on your own.