What does a good Skeptics.SE answer look like? What are the qualities that a perfect Skeptics.SE answer would have?
Ground rules:
Related Question: What are the attributes of a good question?
It must actually answer the question.
You might want to talk about a slightly different topic related to the original question - see for example here:
Answers providing tangential/related information but not an actual answer?
Please don't.
Simply put, comments belong in the comment section. If you can't answer the question, but you have something important to add, don't post it as an answer. It'll decrease the visibility of the actual answers. Instead, post it as a comment. If it's long, break it into a few comments.
It must be factual, not based in speculation.
The primary purpose of Skeptics is to verify or falsify claims. If an answer an be summed to "I don't know for sure, but here is what I think the answer is," then it is a bad answer as it unhelpful - it neither verifies nor falsifies anything.
Speculation is not completely bad. For example, an answer that shows, without speculation, that a claim is false, and then provides some speculation as to how the claim might have sprung from a misunderstanding is certainly a good answer.
It must be written in an accessible vocabulary.
Most Stack Exchange sites are intended for expert-to-expert exchange. Skeptics is different in that most users will be laymen in the topic discussed, be it biology, physics or psychology. For this reason, an answer should always be written in a plain language void of overly technical terms so that it might be understood my the average user.
It must be written in a polite and neutral tone.
We expect users to be respectful of others they disagree with, no matter how frustrated they may be. Rants about young earth creationists, "climate change denialists," etc. will not be tolerated here. If we want to introduce people to the evidence, we have to be nice. Otherwise, we'll drive them away before we even got a chance to educate them.
Every answer must have one or more references.
At the present time, we have a strict "no original research" policy. Simply put, hearsay and anecdotes are not enough.
The significant claims in an answer, especially the claim which most directly answers the question, must be backed up by a reference. References should have credibility in the domain (i.e. no encyclopedia, no source which may be biased, etc.) and should preferably be peer-reviewed literature.
All ... must ..., but later not all claims have to. Either - or.
Commented
Jun 19, 2011 at 0:24
Its references must support the argument, and should be verifiable.
A high-quality reference should have, at least, the following characteristics:
Ideally:
The reference need not be a web-site - it can be printed articles, books, documentaries, etc.
The reference need not come from the list of useful sources, but these are widely-respected sources.
Not all references are going to be able to meet this quality bar, but your arguments will be more convincing, and are more likely to receive votes from fellow skeptics when they do.
[This answer is taken from a meta-question on the topic of good references]
References include the following items:
This answer is based on an answer from What constitutes a reference?
It should summarize the whole truth.
Some topics have thousands of research papers, published world-wide: for example questions related to cancer; tobacco use; the safety of foodstuffs; etc.
With thousands of papers published, it would be easy (but wrong) to select only a few which show whatever you want, and especially where the conclusion contradicts normal findings from a majority of other studies.
For complex topics, where studies disagree, a good answer should show a review of the literature and not just cite a single study (appropriate references might be 'survey' studies, which summarise the conclusions of other studies).
It's not that the majority opinion is always necessarily correct, but an answer should properly cover the topic (which should include at least an acknowledgement of majority opinions).
It must explain the methodology of the studies it cites.
Citing studies is not enough. While a study may prove that X has a correlation with Y, the methodology is important - especially when it comes to social sciences where different definition of terms like "happiness" or generosity" would change the answer drastically.