“I think I read that.”

“I heard it somewhere.”

“I’ll report back to you.”

You may be hearing—or saying—statements like these a lot in current political discussions, but I want to talk about it in the context of evidence-based design (EBD), where we can also run across blanket statements with unclear origins. Let’s take a look at each of these justifications through the lens of EBD:

I think I read that.”

There’s more and more information available to us every day. And that includes research; on The Center’s website alone, more than 300 entries have been added to the Knowledge Repository since January 2016. That can be hard to keep up with and certainly not all of the information would be relevant to any single question being asked. Even if you’re keeping up with research, you may have read an abstract and thought it was interesting but couldn’t access the paper. You may have thought you would get back to it, but it got lost in the list of things to do. You may have read the whole paper and just don’t remember the details.

The point here is if you’re going to say, “I think I read that,” take the time to check what you just said. Find your source and note what you confirm. (If you’re a social media buff, by all means, tweet it if that helps you—others may be interested, too.) Let the others in the conversation know you checked what you said, and correct yourself if needed.  Be an informed source.

“I heard it somewhere.”

This might be a little more dangerous than the first claim. It’s like the game of “telephone.” One person tells the next person, and the next, and everyone hears things a little differently. In the end, the message may or may not be what you started with. Since we have so much information flooding our lives, we often rely on what we hear from others. It might take on more relevance and credibility that way, and stay with us longer than something we read. But when you hear something interesting, an important first question is, “Where did you hear that?” If the person says they read it in XYZ, track it down and see for yourself. If they heard it from another person, that’s a little more challenging to verify. It can also be problematic if one of the sources made an erroneous mental leap in order to simplify the story. On “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” Oliver recently did a piece about new scientific studies, where he presents the cautionary tale of how we like to sensationalize results into a catchy headline. Other studies might get misrepresented in other ways. (Do you know the marshmallow study and how its results got twisted?) If it’s stated as research, you might at least want to read the abstract before buying into the headline. The lesson here is, be an informed consumer.

“I’ll report back to you.”

Both of the previous statements lead us to why “I’ll report back to you” is so important. There might be a few levels of follow-up. Check The Center’s Knowledge Repository: Is there a key point summary to give you an overview of the study and the related design implications? If you have access to a researcher, get that second opinion. Does that person see it the same way, and perhaps know of other related research? For the true diehards that live by the details, look up the original research report. Read it. (Even if you don’t have access to an academic professional, more and more papers are open-access or available through university repositories.) Understand the study beyond the abstract or conclusion. Take the time to read all sections of the paper to understand the implications and limitations that may be most relevant to your project.

The moral of this story is to be responsible with blanket statements you make regarding research in our industry. And when you hear these statements from others, ask questions. Be an informed consumer and an informed source. Or just be informed, period. You’ll be better for it.  

Ellen Taylor, AIA, MBA, EDAC, is director of research at The Center for Health Design (Concord, Calif.). She can be reached at etaylor@healthdesign.org.