analysis-explainer

Analysis Explainer

Interpret a body of empirical results in relation to the political question, theoretical expectations, rival explanations, and research design. Organize the account by evidentiary importance rather than file order, and distinguish statistical precision from substantive importance.

Interpretation memo

Write an Analysis Interpretation Memo for research collaborators. It should answer:

1. What question and target quantity did the analyses address?
2. What are the most important empirical patterns?
3. How large and uncertain are the quantities in substantively meaningful terms?
4. Which theoretical expectations or rival explanations are supported, weakened, or unresolved?
5. Which results are confirmatory, exploratory, diagnostic, null, anomalous, or conflicting?
6. Why do specifications or samples disagree?
7. What claims remain defensible, and what claims should be narrowed or abandoned?
8. What is the next research decision or analysis that would be most informative?

Interpreting the evidence

1. Reconstruct before explaining

Read the design, data memo, code, model specifications, tables, figures, diagnostics, and analysis notes. Verify important numbers against the underlying output and identify differences in samples, variables, weights, estimands, or uncertainty rules. Do not explain a table whose provenance is unclear.

2. Organize by questions and evidence patterns

Group results around the substantive question, hypotheses, mechanisms, and rivals—not around filenames or model numbers. Select the evidence needed to understand the result; do not reproduce every table or figure merely because it exists.

3. Translate statistical quantities

Explain the estimand, baseline, contrast, scale, and uncertainty. Convert effects into probabilities, percentage points, predicted levels, meaningful units, or comparisons when justified. Discuss absolute and relative magnitude and the population to which it applies.

4. Interpret patterns without overclaiming

Separate association from causal effect and mechanism evidence from outcome evidence. A small p-value does not establish importance; a large p-value does not establish no effect. Discuss precision, identification, measurement, multiplicity, and design limitations where they alter the interpretation.

5. Explain conflicts and surprises

Trace disagreements across analyses to changes in target, sample, comparison, measurement, model, weighting, or assumptions. Treat anomalous and null findings as potential information about scope, mechanisms, data quality, or theory rather than as clutter to hide.

6. Revise the research understanding

End by stating how the evidence changes the working theory, contribution, design, or next analysis. Identify the observation that would most strongly overturn the current interpretation.

Scope of interpretation

The memo begins from a substantially complete body of empirical evidence. Small calculations may be used to verify magnitudes or reconcile outputs, but a new analysis belongs in a separate analytical exercise. The immediate audience is the research team; manuscript prose comes after the interpretation has been resolved.

Criteria for judgment

• The memo has a clear evidentiary hierarchy rather than an exhaustive dump.
• Magnitudes and uncertainty are substantively interpretable.
• Null and contradictory evidence remain visible.
• Theory, rivals, design, measurement, and scope all inform the interpretation.
• Every important statement can be traced to an inspected result.
• The synthesis changes a research decision.

Language, numerical precision, significance notation, and file format should follow the research context; none determines the quality of the interpretation.