Research shows… these two words commonly tumble across articles, blog posts, messages — they do their cartwheel everywhere. I trip over these words not only in my private readings but also in my professional field of agile delivery and coaching. I can’t help it and find myself asking. Research shows… what research? Who has conducted that research? Are these people knowledgeable and trustworthy enough to make that claim?
‘Research’ is a broad term. Even if we restrict our definition to strictly academic research where peer reviews and editors are doing their very best to maintain the high standard of academic rigour — even then — who has conducted that research? Do the results fall into the main competency field of that particular researcher or research group? Did a neurophysiologist drop a line about mouse behaviour whilst the paper actually focuses on the catalytic properties of a metabolic enzyme derived from rodent kidneys? Admittedly that would be a glitch. But glitches do happen.
Given that many humans do have an attention bias to exotic or unusual information one can assume that an ‘extraordinary’ find will enjoy a fair bit of attention. Maybe that glitch gets passed on in articles and posts stating that ‘Research shows…’. Without any reference one cannot tell what and who is behind it all.
Even if the information is not a glitch. What about the experimental conditions of the research conducted? Even if the source is 100% true and reliable — how can I tell that the citation is accurately made and does not exhibit an interpretative twist of the secondary author? If a paper states that a team size of 4 has been proven the most effective — does that state the ideal size of a highly specialised fire fighting squad who’s aim it is to rescue individuals from upper floors of a high rise building in case of an emergency? Or are we talking about software engineers in cross functional teams whilst excluding the roles of QA, Scrum Master and Product Owner from the research because we merely focus on code creation?
And what happens when various authors copy from each other? Are we aware of the length of the road that our information has travelled on? Did anything happen between the blocks and blogs where information has been passed on? Do you remember playing Chinese whispers at primary school? What happened there?
Any diligent reader should be able to follow information back to its source. Information is king and queen in this day and age of big data. Similarly ill-information can be devilish and should be avoided due to the potential of damage it may entail.
As an author:
Please take the time to cite your source. If is an academic paper fine. If it is a book that you read — fine. If Twitter is your source — fine. But please let us know. If you don’t have the resources to dig into the academic publication — fine. These might be hard to digest anyways. Non-academic might find it hard to deal with the neutral but really boring writing stye of an academic paper. That’s okay.
If I get my information from a popular science journal that is absolutely fine. If I cite that journal in my article anyone can look it up there and follow that citation to it’s source. This is how the house of information should be build. Clear pillars of knowledge which are build on the foundations of rigour. Because information matters. Malformation is annoying, can be hurtful and right-out damaging. Please be diligent. It takes a bit longer to get your words out if you cite your source of information. But you might learn something along the way and you will build trust to your valued readers.
Research shows… is ambiguous. It is unprofessional and we deserve better.
Information deserves better.
