Questions to Ask a Researcher
Questions to ask someone about their research, whether you are a journalist with a paper to cover, a practitioner weighing a result, a student, or simply curious. They also serve as interview questions to ask a researcher for a profile or a class assignment. The list moves from what was found to who was studied, how much is uncertain, and where the result should not be applied, then to the person: how they came to the work, what the job actually involves, and how to close the interview.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
In one sentence, what did you find?
Why ask it
Researchers rehearse this and it is still revealing. If the one-sentence version needs three caveats to survive being said out loud, the result is more fragile than the abstract suggests.
What question were you actually trying to answer, and who wanted to know?
Why ask it
Papers often answer something narrower than the title implies. Naming the audience, a regulator, a clinician, a funder, an open argument in the field, tells you what the study was built to be good at.
Why this design rather than the obvious alternative?
Why ask it
Every design is a trade. Hearing what an observational study gave up against a trial, or a lab task against field data, tells you where the finding is strong and where it is borrowed.
Who is in the sample, and who is not?
Why ask it
Ask for the recruitment route: a university subject pool, one hospital system, an online panel. The exclusions are usually the more informative half and rarely make the abstract.
How big is the effect in units I would recognize?
Why ask it
Push for minutes, dollars, percentage points, or cases avoided rather than standardized units. A statistically large effect can be a difference nobody in the field would act on.
How much of this could be chance, and where would I see that in the paper?
Why ask it
You want to be pointed at intervals and sample sizes rather than a p-value. A researcher who cannot show you the uncertainty in their own figures is describing a conclusion, not a result.
Was the analysis planned before you saw the data?
Why ask it
Preregistration, or its absence, changes how much weight a surprising subgroup finding deserves. Honest answers here often contain the phrase that one was exploratory.
Which result surprised you, and did you go back and check it?
Why ask it
Surprises are where both errors and discoveries live. What they did next, recoded, reran, called a collaborator, says more about their standards than the finding itself does.
What did you do about missing data and outliers?
Why ask it
Dropped cases and trimmed tails can carry a result on their own. The follow-up worth asking is whether the conclusion survives the other reasonable choice, and whether that check appears in the paper.
What is the most plausible alternative explanation?
Why ask it
Careful researchers keep a named rival explanation and a reason it is weaker. An answer that there is none means either they are far ahead of the field or they have not looked.
Where would you expect this not to hold?
Why ask it
Boundary conditions are the difference between a finding and a slogan. Specifics such as older patients, lower doses, or other countries tell you whether your own case sits inside the evidence.
What would change your mind?
Why ask it
This asks for a falsifiable condition, which separates a position from a commitment. Vagueness here tends to predict vagueness about limitations everywhere else.
Has anyone tried to replicate it, and what happened?
Why ask it
Failed and partial replications rarely get the attention the original did, and the author usually hears about them first. Ask directly, because silence in the literature is not agreement.
Are the data and code available, and what would I need to rerun it?
Why ask it
Answers range from a public repository to consent terms that genuinely prevent sharing. Either is workable; evasion about which one applies is not.
Who funded this, and did they see it before publication?
Why ask it
Funding alone is not a verdict, but review rights and approval clauses are. Ask about the arrangement rather than only the name on the grant.
How has this been reported, and what did the coverage get wrong?
Why ask it
Researchers are usually irritated by one specific distortion, and naming it is the fastest route to where the study gets over-read. It also shows how closely they police their own claims.
If a practitioner reads one figure, which one, and what should they do differently?
Why ask it
Forces a translation from evidence into action. If nothing follows for practice yet, a straight answer saying so is more useful than an implication that something does.
What did not make it into the paper?
Why ask it
A pilot study, a failed condition, an underpowered arm. What sits in the drawer shapes how to read what is on the page, and most researchers will say if asked plainly.
What would you do differently if you ran it again?
Why ask it
The answer is usually about measurement or sample size, and it points straight at the weakest link. Someone who would change nothing has stopped examining the work.
What is the open question you cannot answer yet?
Why ask it
Where a field is stuck is often more informative than what has been settled, and it tells you which claims elsewhere in the literature to treat as unresolved.
What are you working on right now, and how would you explain it to someone outside your field?
Why ask it
The plain-language version shows whether someone understands the work or only its vocabulary. Researchers early in a project tend to describe the method, while those further along describe the question.
How did you come to be working on this question rather than another?
Why ask it
The route is rarely a plan. An adviser's leftover dataset, a result that would not replicate, or a problem met in a previous job tends to sit behind it, and that story is what a profile or a class report needs first.
What does a normal week actually look like for you?
Why ask it
Most research time goes to grant writing, teaching, code, equipment, and administration rather than discovery. The proportion is the biggest surprise for students weighing the career.
What part of the work is tedious in a way outsiders never picture?
Why ask it
Asking for the tedium invites honesty and produces the most memorable detail: the sample preparation, the cleaning of a dataset, the years of recruitment. It also shows where errors are most likely to enter.
Who else has to be involved for this work to happen?
Why ask it
Research is far more collaborative than a first-author byline suggests, and the answer surfaces the technicians, statisticians, clinicians, and participants who make it possible. It also clarifies what the person in front of you actually does.
What has failed in this project, and what did you do next?
Why ask it
Failure is most of the record and almost none of the publications. Listen for whether the response was a changed method, a changed question, or quiet abandonment.
What can your methods not tell you?
Why ask it
Every method has boundaries: correlation without causation, small samples, animal models that only partly resemble people, self-reported data. Someone who volunteers their own limits is someone whose claims you can weigh.
What does your field disagree about, and where do you sit?
Why ask it
Every field has live disputes that outsiders read as settled consensus. Hearing where they stand, and who they think is mistaken, is how you learn the shape of the field.
Which finding in your area do you expect will not hold up?
Why ask it
This asks for a prediction of failure, which takes judgment and some nerve. Answers often point at results that are widely cited but thinly supported, and the reasoning teaches you how to read a paper.
How do you decide a paper is finished?
Why ask it
Publication is a judgment about when the story is sufficient, not a natural endpoint. The answer exposes the pressures they work under, from a student needing to graduate to a grant renewal date.
What happened to the last paper you submitted, and how long did review take?
Why ask it
Peer review runs for months and often reshapes a paper substantially, none of which is visible in the published version. Rejections and requested extra experiments are the part of the process outsiders never see.
What would you work on if funding were not a constraint?
Why ask it
The answer shows what the funding system does not support, which is often replication, long-term studies, and unfashionable questions. It also tends to be the subject they speak about with the most energy.
What do you wish you had known before starting a research career?
Why ask it
You get the honest version: pay, geographic mobility, the postdoc years, and the odds of a permanent position. Prospective students hear the recruiting version far more often than this one.
Who taught you how to do research, and what habit of theirs do you still keep?
Why ask it
Method is passed on by apprenticeship more than by textbook, so the answer tends to name a supervisor and one concrete practice, such as plotting the raw data before running any test. It gives an interview a second person to mention and a detail readers remember.
Was there a point when you nearly left research, and what kept you in it?
Why ask it
People who have one usually remember the year, often the end of a contract or a long run of rejections. Ask it late and make it easy to decline, because the answer may involve colleagues who are still around.
What should I read to understand this properly, and what should I skip?
Why ask it
A review article or a textbook chapter is usually a better entry point than the primary literature, and researchers know which ones are readable. Asking what to skip also guards against being pointed only at their own back catalog.
Who else should I talk to about this, including someone who would disagree with you?
Why ask it
One source is one view of a field. A researcher who names a critic without being pushed is giving you a fairer picture, and for an assignment the second interview is often where a summary turns into an argument.
Can I check the numbers and the technical wording with you before this is published or handed in?
Why ask it
Checking facts with the source is different from giving them approval over the piece, so say which you are offering. Newsrooms and courses set their own rules on showing drafts, so ask your editor or instructor how it works there before you promise anything.
What should I have asked you about your research that I did not?
Why ask it
Kept for last because by then they know what you missed. It often brings out the caveat or the side result they had been waiting to mention, so leave the recorder running until they have answered.
Reading a Study Without the Hype
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you ask
Interviewing a researcher for a class or a story
Say which it is when you ask for the time, along with how long you need and whether you will record. A researcher pitches the detail differently for a news piece, a school assignment, and a chat after a talk, and knowing the audience is what lets them skip the jargon.
Read the methods and the figures first
The discussion section is where authors interpret generously. Arriving with the sample size, the design, and one confusing figure gives you specific questions instead of general ones.
Write down what would change your own decision
If you are weighing a policy, a purchase, or a treatment, name the number that would move you. It keeps the conversation on effect sizes rather than on significance.
Settle the sample before the conclusion
Nearly every overreach traces back to who was studied. Establish that first and the remaining answers are much easier to weigh.
Ask them to define one term
Adherence, improvement, engagement, and severity are all operationalized differently between studies. The definition often narrows the claim considerably.
Phrases that should prompt a follow-up
- A trend toward significance usually means the result did not reach the threshold the authors themselves set.
- Associated with is not a causal claim, whatever the press release does with it.
- Well tolerated describes what was recorded, so ask how harms were measured and for how long.
- In a large study invites you to check whether large counts participants, observations, or clicks.
- Robust to specification should be followed by which specifications were tried and which were not.
Common pitfalls
Judging by the journal
Prestige tells you little about any single paper. The design, the sample, and whether the analysis was planned in advance tell you far more than the masthead.
Treating one study as the answer
A single result is one estimate. Ask where it sits relative to existing work and whether it is an outlier before you build anything on it.
Confusing relative and absolute change
A doubling of a rare risk can be a very small absolute change. Ask for the baseline rate before reacting to any percentage.
Reading only the abstract
Abstracts are written to be quotable. Exclusions, limitations, and the difference between primary and secondary outcomes usually live further in.
A four-step interview flow
- 1The claim: what was found, in one sentence and in real units
- 2The setup: who was studied, by what method, and what was decided in advance
- 3The uncertainty: how much could be chance, and what else could explain it
- 4The use: where it applies, where it does not, and what should change as a result