How we read a study

Most “new study” headlines are written from a press release. The paper is longer, drier, and more useful. This is how we read it before we put it on the page.

The questions

• Where was it published, and is it peer-reviewed or a preprint?
• What was measured, in whom, and how many?
• What was the comparison — a control, a baseline, a model?
• Who funded it, and what did the authors declare?
• Does the conclusion match the data, or only the press-office headline?

Relative risk without absolute risk is a common trick. A mouse study is not a human trial. A small observational paper is not a mandate for public policy. If a finding would change how a hospital or a ministry acts, it also belongs on Health or Environment, with those limits intact.

We will not write that “scientists say” as if science were a person. We will name the team, the institution, and the journal.