The most common way of preventing or eliminating differences in the use of languages is by agreeing on the definition of our terms. Since these explicit accounts of the meaning of a word or phrase can be offered in distinct contexts and employed in the service of different goals, it's useful to distinguish definitions of several kinds.
Once you have your operational definition, then you can begin your research and others can monitor your progress and valuate your results. Without having an operational definition in place, any peer review of your work would not make sense.
How might you all use what you are learning about operational definitions in writing your final papers?