Common Mistakes & How to Avoid Them
Learn from the most frequent coding errors to improve your accuracy
Scoring your agreement with the post's politics
The single most common error. You read a post arguing for a political position you disagree with and your scores creep downward. Every time you enter a score, ask: 'Am I scoring this indicator, or am I scoring whether I agree?'
Treating short posts as automatically low-scoring
A three-word post can still score 0 on Empathy if those three words are cruel. A two-sentence post can score 4 on Solidarity. Score what is there, not what is missing due to length.
Using SKIP when you should score 0
SKIP means the dimension cannot be applied. It does not mean the post scores badly. If a post is hostile, it scores 0 on Anti-Hostility — you don't skip that indicator.
Rushing through to finish
Content analysis requires careful, deliberate reading. Budget at least 3-5 minutes per post. Read the post twice before scoring — once for overall impression, then again indicator by indicator.
Not reading the Score Guide
The Score Guide provides anchor descriptions and examples for every indicator. Keep it open while you code. When in doubt, re-read the relevant anchor descriptions.
Coding Challenges & Guidance
Score what is present, not what is missing due to brevity. A one-word insult scores 0 on Respectful Tone regardless of its length. A three-word expression of solidarity ('We stand together') may score 3 on Solidarity. If a post doesn't contain enough material to assess an indicator, record Low confidence.
Score the overall balance of the post on each indicator. Don't average mechanically — ask which quality is more dominant, more sustained, and more structurally central to the post's purpose.
The DDI does not evaluate whether political positions are correct. It evaluates how they are expressed. A post arguing for a position you strongly disagree with can score 4 on every dimension. If you find yourself scoring a post low because of what it says rather than how it says it, that is a coding error.
Use SKIP when a dimension is structurally inapplicable — when there is simply no content in the post that could be scored on that dimension. Don't SKIP because scoring would be inconvenient or because the post scores 0. Score 0 is meaningful data. When in doubt, score rather than skip, and record Low confidence.
- Score discourse quality, not political content
- Read each post at least twice before scoring
- Keep the Score Guide open while coding
- Be honest about uncertainty with Low confidence
- Budget 3-5 minutes per post for first batches
- Score what is present in the text
- Score based on whether you agree with the post
- Rush through posts to finish quickly
- Code without checking the anchor descriptions
- Default to Medium confidence out of habit
- Use SKIP when the post just scores 0
- Compare scores with other coders before Step 5
Remember: Low reliability is information, not failure. Every piece of professional content analysis research goes through a reliability-testing and rubric-refinement stage. Finding that an indicator is hard to apply consistently is a valuable scientific finding — it tells researchers that the indicator needs to be more precisely defined.