---
name: Answer The Why, Not Only The What
slug: answer-the-why-not-only-the-what
category: Writing
description: Answer The Why, Not Only The What helps you write results and discussion sections that explain why an effect happens, not just whether it happened. Use it when a reviewer or task asks for mechanism claims, competing explanations, or limits on what the data support.
github: "https://github.com/tangxiangru/AutoR/tree/main/src/skills/answer-the-why-not-only-the-what"
language: Python
stars: 804
forks: 25
install: "npx degit https://github.com/tangxiangru/AutoR/tree/main/src/skills/answer-the-why-not-only-the-what ~/.claude/skills/answer-the-why-not-only-the-what"
installs_to: ~/.claude/skills/answer-the-why-not-only-the-what
source_path: src/skills/answer-the-why-not-only-the-what/SKILL.md
collection_size: 25
category_size: 1012
collection_url: "https://dirskills.com/collections/tangxiangru/AutoR"
added: 2026-08-22T05:22:23.252Z
last_synced: 2026-08-22T05:22:23.252Z
canonical_url: "https://dirskills.com/skills/answer-the-why-not-only-the-what"
---

# Answer The Why, Not Only The What

Answer The Why, Not Only The What helps you write results and discussion sections that explain why an effect happens, not just whether it happened. Use it when a reviewer or task asks for mechanism claims, competing explanations, or limits on what the data support.

**Install:**

```bash
npx degit https://github.com/tangxiangru/AutoR/tree/main/src/skills/answer-the-why-not-only-the-what ~/.claude/skills/answer-the-why-not-only-the-what
```

## README

# A measured effect is half the result

Plenty of the questions a study is judged on are not "what is the number" but
"why is it that number": why two methods that should differ give the same gain,
why an effect is larger in one regime, why the improvement vanishes past a
threshold, what the failure cases have in common.

A report can measure such an effect precisely and score nothing on it, because
it never says what the effect is *evidence of*. Numbers are the input to that
argument, not the argument.

## What a mechanism claim needs

- **The candidate explanations, named.** Usually two or three are plausible. Say
  which they are before you argue for one; a single explanation asserted looks
  like the only one you thought of.
- **Something that distinguishes them.** An ablation, a stratification, a regime
  where they predict different things. This is often cheap once the main result
  exists — you already have the pipeline.
- **The one that survives, and what would overturn it.** A mechanism nothing
  could refute is a story.

## Where it goes

In the Discussion, and again in one sentence in the Results next to the effect
it explains. A reader who sees the number and no account of it forms their own,
and it is rarely yours.

## When you cannot explain it

Say that, and say what you would run. "We do not know why X and Y agree here;
distinguishing the two accounts would need Z" is a real contribution and reads
as honesty. Silence next to a surprising number reads as not having noticed it.