UVegan

Editorial policy

Citations and Corrections Policy

Trust is the whole product here. This page explains how sources get chosen, how errors get fixed, and how to tell us when we get something wrong.

Last reviewed: Invalid Date

How sources are chosen

Not every study is worth citing, and a single study rarely settles anything. We weight sources in roughly this order:

  • Systematic reviews and meta-analyses that pool many studies, because they smooth out the noise of any single result.
  • Position papers and reports from major bodies like the World Health Organization, the IPCC, and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, which represent a field's consensus rather than one lab's finding.
  • Large prospective cohort studies and well-run trials, named with their sample size so you can judge the weight.
  • Official reference pages from agencies like the NIH and USDA for definitions and dietary requirements.

We avoid building any claim on a single small study, a press release, or a documentary. Documentaries appear only in the resources section, clearly flagged as persuasion rather than evidence.

How a source gets into the library

Before a study is added to the Science library, its page is fetched and checked: the title, authors, year, and venue must match what we claim, and the figures we quote must appear in the source. A source that cannot be verified is not added, and any claim that depended on it is removed with it. We record the verification when the site is built.

Distinguishing the kinds of risk

Health writing on this site separates two things that headlines routinely blur. Hazard versus risk: a classification like the WHO labeling processed meat a Group 1 carcinogen describes how confident scientists are that it causes some cancer, not how much it raises your odds. Relative versus absolute risk: a "20% higher risk" sounds alarming but may mean a move from a small number to a slightly larger one. We try to give you both. If you want to read studies this way yourself, start with how to read a nutrition study without getting fooled.

How errors get fixed

When we find a mistake, or you report one, we correct the page and note what changed. Substantive corrections to a factual claim are dated. We would rather fix something quietly accurate than defend something loudly wrong.

Every article also carries a visible "Last reviewed" date, so you can see how fresh the page is. Health articles carry it without exception.

Report a problem

If a citation does not support the claim it is attached to, a link is dead, or a number looks off, tell us. Email hello@uvegan.org with the page and the issue. Corrections from readers are one of the best things that can happen to a reference site.