This page describes how articles on Mind After Dark are researched, written and corrected. It is written plainly so you can judge the work rather than take it on trust.
Who writes this
Mind After Dark is written and edited by Ethan Carter. There is no editorial board and no panel of reviewers. Where an article would benefit from expert review, that review is either obtained and named, or it is not claimed.
No article here is written by a clinician, and none of it is clinical advice.
How claims are sourced
- Primary research first. Articles are built from the original papers, meta-analyses and systematic reviews, not from summaries of them.
- Dictionary entries define, they do not prove. APA Dictionary links are used to define a term. They are never used as evidence that an effect is real.
- Wikipedia is not used as evidence. It may be useful for orientation; it is not cited here to support a claim.
- Citations sit next to the claim they support, not gathered in a list at the end where they cannot be checked against anything specific.
How contested research is handled
A great deal of popular psychology rests on findings that are disputed, weakly replicated, or smaller than the headline suggests. The standard here is to say so in the article rather than to pick the more quotable version.
In practice that means:
- Where a famous effect has failed to replicate, the failure is stated and linked — not omitted because it complicates the story.
- Where researchers genuinely disagree, both positions are cited, including the one that undercuts the article’s theme.
- Where an effect is real but its reported size is unreliable, the direction is presented as solid and the number as uncertain.
- Where there is no good evidence for a widely repeated claim, the article says there is no good evidence rather than reaching for a weaker study.
What this site does not do
- No diagnosis, no treatment advice. Articles describe research. They are not a substitute for a doctor, therapist or crisis service, and they say so where the subject is serious.
- No invented credentials. No qualification, affiliation or clinical role is claimed anywhere on this site.
- No paid placements. Nothing here is published in exchange for payment, and no link is sold.
- No manufactured certainty. “Science says” is not used to describe one study.
Updates
Articles are revised when the evidence changes, when a source is superseded, or when a claim turns out to be weaker than it first appeared. Substantive revisions are treated as corrections and handled under the corrections policy.
Questions and challenges
If you think a claim here is wrong, overstated or badly sourced, say so — get in touch. Specific objections with a source attached are the most useful thing a reader can send.