Surveying Prior Work

Overview

Before designing an analysis, ground the question and your chosen methods in what is already known. Most questions have established methods, known confounds, and prior effect sizes. Reinventing a method badly — or rediscovering a known artifact and reporting it as a finding — wastes effort and erodes credibility.

Core principle: Find out what is already known before you generate new claims.

This is the science analog of reading the existing codebase before writing new code. It is a flexible skill — adapt depth to the stakes of the investigation.

When to Use

• After framing-research-questions, before designing-the-analysis
• When selecting a statistical method or model and unsure what is standard
• When a result looks novel — check whether it is a known effect or artifact first
• When you need a plausible prior effect size to power the study
• When you suspect confounds but don't know which are established in the field

What to Ground