Research Process

Last updated March 31, 2025
By Ian Story

This article describes our process for gathering and documenting the information required to solve a problem. Use this process when you need to look up information for a project, find an engineering procedure, check detailing best practices, or otherwise gather information before you can move forward with a task.

1. REVIEW KNOWLEDGE BASE: Check our knowledge base articles to see if we have already written anything about the topic. If that answers your question, you’re done! If the article doesn’t fully answer your question, proceed to step 3.
2. CREATE A NEW KNOWLEDGE BASE ARTICLE: If no relevant article exists in our knowledge base, it is your job to create it. Use the following steps to create a new article:
   • Go to modearchitecture.com/wp-admin and sign in using your credentials.
   • Open the “Posts” page from the left sidebar.
   • Click the “Add New Post” button in the top left.
   • Give the new page a descriptive title based on the question you are trying to answer. Keep it short, and try to make it something you would search for if you needed to answer this question again in the future. You can change this later once you understand the topic you are researching better.
   • Write a short description at the top of the page that describes the intent of the article. See the introduction at the top of this article for an example. The language should be short and simple, about 1 to 3 sentences long.
   • In the right-hand sidebar, switch to the “Post” tab at the top and find the section titled “Categories.” Check the box for all relevant categories that apply to the article. Or, if nothing quite fits, use the Add New Category link at the bottom to create a new category that fits the article.
   • Click Publish at the top right to save the page. Don’t just save it as a draft – we want new knowledge base articles to go live as soon as you start them. Even if you don’t finish the page, this will be a reminder to anyone else who finds it that there is interest in this topic and it needs further information.
3. DO THE RESEARCH & TAKE NOTES: Use any relevant tools (google searches, code book searches, youtube videos, books, emails to planners or relevant experts, etc.) to do the research to answer your question. As you go, use the knowledge base article as a workspace to take notes. Save relevant links (or write down citations for sources that can’t be linked) so you can find the information again later. Once you have answered the question sufficiently to complete your original task, write down your conclusions and take a couple minutes to tidy up your notes. The goal is to help anyone else who finds the article in the future answer the same question without needing to do original research. Don’t just write down your conclusions though: also include sources and notes on how you came to that conclusion so that others can double check your work in the future. It is OK for your knowledge base article to be short and direct. If a single link provides everything you need to know on a topic, the article could consist of just that link and a short description of what you found. You also don’t need to be comprehensive – you may have only needed a small piece of a topic to answer your question. That’s OK: anyone else who finds the article in the future can add to it if they need more information on the topic.
   • If, during the course of your research, you uncover tangential questions that need to be answered, start this process again for the new topic. You may need to research multiple topics at once, but make sure that each independent topic has its own knowledge article associated with it. For example, while researching the code differences between the IRC and IBC, I found myself needing to clearly define the transitions between an exit and an exit discharge in a means of egress system. This topic is separate from the general question about IRC vs IBC, so I started a second knowledge base article to document my findings on the new topic.
4. BROADCAST THE UPDATE: Save the article. A popup will say “Post updated. View Post.” Click on View Post to go to the finished page. Copy the URL. In the Slack “knowledge-base” channel, make a post that says “New Article: <URL>” or “Updated Article: <URL>”.