How we work

Drafting

We use AI tools to research topics and prepare first drafts. Every article is then reviewed, fact-checked, and edited by a human editor before it is published. Nothing goes live without human sign-off.

Sources

Every article cites its primary sources at the bottom — the agency, institute or governing body that publishes the document being explained. Before publication a separate pass goes through the draft claim by claim and marks every figure, date, quotation and "according to X" against those documents. Anything it cannot match gets sourced properly or taken out, and that call is made by a person rather than by the tool that flags it.

General background is written without a citation — what a term means, how an arithmetic example works — because a definition carries no risk of being wrong about the world. Where the subject is health or money, that exemption narrows: how a drug behaves, what a label warns against, and quantified claims about what a number implies are treated as specific claims that need a document behind them.

Corrections

When an article turns out to say something untrue, we say so on the article itself: a correction note above the text, naming what the earlier version said and the date it was fixed. Being wrong about a source counts the same as being wrong about a fact — a phrase put in an agency's mouth gets the same note as a wrong figure. Changes that leave the article's claims standing, like a renamed source page or a sentence rewritten for tone, move the updated date and nothing else. Spotted an error?Tell us.

Choosing topics

Two things get written here. Most articles are evergreen explainers built from a primary document — a regulation, an agency program page, a published schedule — chosen because the rule is durable and hard to piece together from the source alone. A smaller number start from something people are searching for that week, and are only written when there is enough primary material to say something that lasts after the moment passes.

Some subjects are declined outright: fresh disasters and deaths, partisan politics, active court cases, gambling, and gossip. Where a topic is legal or medical, articles describe what the rule or the label says and stop there.

Advice

We explain; we don't advise. Articles about money or health describe what's happening and what it may mean — decisions belong with you and a qualified professional.