About Our Editorial Standards and Sourcing Rules

Mission: practical clarity over hype

This site exists to reduce decision friction for readers in the United States who need reliable, well-organized information on niche topics. We publish concise research briefs that synthesize authoritative sources into actionable insights. Our goal is practical clarity—helping you understand complex topics quickly without sacrificing accuracy or nuance.

The internet contains vast amounts of information, but finding trustworthy, well-sourced content on specific topics often requires significant effort. Search results mix authoritative sources with promotional content, outdated pages, and misinformation. We aim to serve as a curated layer that does the initial research work, presents findings transparently, and points you toward primary sources for verification.

Our target geographic focus is the United States, and our content assumes US context unless explicitly stated otherwise. This means we prioritize US government data sources, reference US regulatory frameworks, and write for readers familiar with American institutions and terminology. The site language is American English (en-US), and examples draw from US experiences and datasets.

We reject hype-driven content that prioritizes engagement over accuracy. You will not find clickbait headlines, exaggerated claims, or content designed to provoke emotional reactions rather than inform. Every brief aims to leave you better informed than before, with clear pathways to verify our claims independently.

Editorial standards and evidence grading

Our editorial standards govern how we select topics, evaluate sources, structure briefs, and handle corrections. These standards exist to ensure consistency across all published content and to make our methodology transparent to readers who want to assess our reliability.

Evidence grading forms the core of our quality framework. Every significant claim in a brief receives an implicit or explicit confidence assessment based on source quality, corroboration, and stability over time. High-confidence claims rest on multiple authoritative sources that agree, use transparent methodologies, and have remained stable across measurement periods. Medium-confidence claims have solid support but with caveats—perhaps limited to a single high-quality source, or showing some variation across time or geography. Low-confidence claims represent emerging findings, contested interpretations, or areas where authoritative sources disagree.

"Prefer primary sources; label uncertainty. When evidence is strong, say so clearly. When evidence is weak or contested, say that too. Readers deserve to know not just what we found, but how confident they should be in our findings."

— Core editorial principle

Citation expectations require that every factual claim trace back to an identifiable source. We prefer primary sources—original data releases, official reports, peer-reviewed research—over secondary interpretations. When secondary sources are necessary, we identify them as such and explain why primary sources were unavailable or insufficient. Links to sources use clean URLs without tracking parameters, ensuring readers reach the same content we referenced.

Corrections follow a documented process. When we identify errors—whether through our own review, reader feedback, or source updates—we correct the content promptly and note the correction with its date. Significant corrections that change the meaning or implications of a brief receive prominent notice. Minor corrections (typos, broken links, formatting) are fixed without annotation. We do not silently alter substantive content; the correction record maintains accountability.

Topic selection prioritizes areas where reliable information is difficult to find, where misinformation is common, or where synthesizing multiple sources adds significant value. We avoid topics adequately covered by existing authoritative sources—there is no need to duplicate what government agencies or established institutions already publish well. Our value lies in synthesis, clarification, and accessibility, not in competing with primary sources.

Roles and responsibilities table

The following table outlines the editorial workflow for each published brief, identifying distinct roles, their primary responsibilities, quality checks they perform, and the artifacts they produce. This structure ensures multiple perspectives review each brief before publication.

This workflow ensures separation of concerns—the person who researches a topic is not the sole judge of whether the brief accurately represents that research. Multiple checkpoints catch errors, inconsistencies, and unclear writing before readers encounter them.

Accessibility and performance commitments

Accessibility is not an afterthought on this site; it is a foundational design principle. We build with semantic HTML that conveys document structure to assistive technologies. Headings follow a logical hierarchy. Navigation is consistent across pages. Interactive elements are keyboard-accessible. These practices align with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) published by the World Wide Web Consortium.

Keyboard-first navigation means every interactive element—links, buttons, disclosure widgets—can be reached and activated using only a keyboard. Tab order follows visual layout. Focus states are clearly visible, using high-contrast outlines that meet WCAG requirements. Users who cannot or prefer not to use a mouse experience full functionality.

We implement focus-visible styles that appear only during keyboard navigation, avoiding the visual clutter of focus rings during mouse interaction while maintaining accessibility for keyboard users. Skip links allow users to bypass repetitive navigation and jump directly to main content. These patterns follow guidance from the NIST Information Technology Laboratory on accessible technology implementation.

Reduced motion support respects user preferences set at the operating system level. When users indicate they prefer reduced motion, our CSS disables transitions, animations, and smooth scrolling. Content remains fully accessible; only decorative motion is removed. This accommodation benefits users with vestibular disorders, motion sensitivity, or simply a preference for instant state changes.

The decision to exclude images and scripts directly supports both accessibility and performance. Images require alt text to be accessible, can fail to load on slow connections, and increase page weight significantly. Scripts introduce potential accessibility barriers, security vulnerabilities, and performance costs. By building with HTML and CSS only, we ensure pages load quickly on any device, render correctly in any browser, and remain accessible to the widest possible audience. For more context on accessibility principles, see the Wikipedia overview of accessibility.

Performance commitments include sub-second load times on typical connections, minimal data transfer (pages measured in kilobytes, not megabytes), and no render-blocking resources beyond the single CSS file. These characteristics make the site usable on older devices, slow connections, and in low-bandwidth situations that affect many users.

Navigate the site

To explore our published briefs and see these standards in practice, return to the homepage. For answers to common questions about our methodology, sourcing practices, and update schedules, read the FAQ.

All pages on this site use clean URLs without tracking parameters, session identifiers, or unnecessary query strings. The URL you see in your browser's address bar is the permanent address for that content. Bookmarks work reliably. Shared links lead to exactly the same content for every recipient. This simplicity reflects our broader commitment to transparency and user respect.

Static pages do not mean static content. We update briefs when new information warrants revision, and we note update dates clearly. The "static" in static site refers to how pages are served—as pre-built files rather than dynamically generated responses—not to content permanence. This architecture provides speed, security, and reliability advantages while still allowing content to evolve as knowledge advances.