How it works
How START works
Every brief on START passes through the same three stages. The point is simple: what you read should be faithful to what the research actually found — and you should never have to take our word for it.
Source
We begin only with peer-reviewed research that has been formally published. Preprints, press releases, and working papers don't qualify on their own — if the science isn't settled enough to cite, it isn't ready to translate. Every brief names the original work and links to it.
Translate
A contributor with genuine background in the field rewrites the research in plain language. Translation is not simplification: the job is to remove jargon without removing meaning, and to keep every claim anchored to the specific evidence that supports it. Where the research is uncertain, the brief says so.
Vet
Before anything is published, a second vetted academic reviews the brief against the source material. They check that nothing was overstated, softened, or lost in translation. Only then does it go live — with the original citation attached, so any reader can go straight to the source.
Corrections are a feature, not an embarrassment.
Research moves. When a finding is updated, retracted, or challenged, the brief is updated to match — and the change is logged in the open. A living record beats a frozen one.