This page documents how Parental Alienation Center makes editorial decisions. We publish it because readers and reviewers should be able to evaluate our work on its method, not only on its content. Six principles, a four-tier source hierarchy, a six-stage workflow, separable fact-checking, and a public corrections log are the editorial spine. The standards here apply to every long-form page on the site, with no exceptions for any author, including the publisher.
Editorial principles
Six principles guide every editorial decision on this site.
The first is evidence first. Every clinical or legal claim on the site is anchored to a primary source. We treat peer-reviewed research, statutes, court opinions, and named clinical authorities as primary sources. We do not treat other commentary sites, opinion pieces, or aggregator content as primary sources.
The second is balance. Parental alienation is a contested field. Where the literature is divided, we present the disagreement honestly, name the disputants, and refuse to pick sides on questions where the evidence does not support a single position.
The third is plain language. Our reading-level target is roughly eighth grade for most pages, with allowances for legal-heavy pages where some technical vocabulary is unavoidable. Where technical terms appear, we define them in context.
The fourth is calm voice. We do not use urgency language. We do not catastrophize. We do not promise outcomes. We do not encourage tactical advantage in custody disputes.
The fifth is named accountability. Every page carries a named author, Alex Buckles (PAC Founder), and states its review status plainly. Once the independent expert review board is appointed, pages with high YMYL stakes will also carry a named expert reviewer of record. We never claim expert review a page has not had, and anonymous content does not appear on the site’s most important pages.
The sixth is structural transparency. The methods on this page, the citation rules at Citations and Sources, the funding statement at Funding Disclosure, and the corrections log are all public. Readers can verify how we work. This aligns with the Trust Project Trust Indicators, a third-party framework for newsroom transparency.
Source hierarchy
We use a four-tier hierarchy when evaluating sources for any page.
Tier 1, primary sources, includes peer-reviewed research, statutes, regulations, court opinions in their original reporters, official agency publications, and academic or clinical authors writing in their primary fields with documented expertise. We prefer Tier 1 sources for any clinical or legal claim. Citation formatting follows the APA citation style for psychological and clinical sources.
Tier 2, secondary sources, includes books and articles by named experts working from Tier 1 material, professional-organization publications such as those from the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and the American Bar Association Family Law Section, and well-edited reference texts. We use Tier 2 sources to summarize and contextualize Tier 1 material.
Tier 3, expert primary teaching, includes content from named clinicians, attorneys, and researchers in formats such as video lectures, podcasts, and authoritative blog corpora. We cite Tier 3 sources when the named expert is the primary teacher of the framework or technique we are referencing, and when their work is supported by Tier 1 or Tier 2 sources elsewhere.
Tier 4, contextual sources, includes investigative journalism, opinion pieces, news coverage, and personal accounts. We use Tier 4 sources for context and for representing perspectives, never as the primary basis for clinical or legal claims.
We do not cite anonymous blog posts, social media content (other than from named experts in their professional capacity), AI-generated summaries, or unverified Wikipedia entries.
Editorial workflow per page
Every long-form page on this site moves through six stages. The deeper walk-through lives at Methodology; the summary is here.
Stage one is the brief. The author writes a structured brief that captures the page’s intended audience, search intent, thesis, evidence map, recommended angle, and length. The brief is reviewed by an editor before drafting begins.
Stage two is the outline. The author produces a detailed outline with the page’s heading hierarchy, per-section evidence anchors, internal-link plan, external-link plan, headline candidates, and image briefs. The outline is reviewed by an editor before drafting begins.
Stage three is the full draft. The author writes the body in plain English per the approved outline. The draft is reviewed by an editor for voice, structure, and clarity.
Stage four is accuracy and balance review. Every page passes a documented editorial review: every clinical and legal claim is traced to a primary source, sourcing is stance-labeled, a balance review presents the strongest counter-position, and a safety review verifies domestic-violence caveats and crisis resources. An independent expert review board (a licensed clinician, a family-law attorney, and lived-experience contributors) will be appointed once the site is live, against the public criteria at the Expert Review Board page. Once the board is seated, its sign-off will be added to this stage for pages with high YMYL stakes, and its feedback will be binding. We never describe editorial review as expert review.
Stage five is validation. Each page passes through automated and manual checks. We verify the absence of em-dashes, banned filler transitions, and weaponization language. We verify title length, meta description length, slug length, excerpt length, and the Flesch readability target. We verify that schema markup validates. We verify that the abuse caveat appears where required and that the crisis-line block appears in the footer.
Stage six is publish. The page goes live with the named author byline, a plainly stated review-status line, last-reviewed date, and full citation list. Review status is stated plainly on every page; we never claim expert review a page has not had.
YMYL tiering and review cadence
Each page is assigned a YMYL tier that determines reviewer requirements and refresh cadence.
High-tier pages cover material with significant clinical or legal stakes. The Learn pillar, the Court pillar, and the major Recover pages are High-tier. Once the expert review board is appointed, they will require both clinical and legal board sign-off where applicable. They are refreshed every 90 days.
Medium-tier pages cover behavioral and educational content where the stakes are real but the page is less likely to be cited as authority for a court filing or a clinical decision. Most cluster pages in the Signs, Help, and Recover silos are Medium-tier. Once the expert review board is appointed, they will require sign-off from a single board reviewer. They are refreshed every 180 days.
Low-tier pages cover trust-building, methodological, or contextual content. The pages in the About section, the glossary, the reading lists, and the resource pages are Low-tier. They require editorial review and will not require expert review board sign-off. They are refreshed annually or as needed.
The current tier of every page is documented in the page’s frontmatter and reflected on the page itself.
Fact-checking process
We treat fact-checking as a separable function from drafting. The author and the editor are different people, and the fact-checker is a third person where the page contains numerical claims, statutory citations, or case-law references.
Fact-checking pulls every claim in the page back to its source. Numerical claims must trace to an identifiable primary source. Statutory citations must trace to the actual text of the statute. Case-law citations must trace to the published opinion. Clinical claims must trace to a peer-reviewed paper, an authoritative book by a named clinical authority, or a clear teaching by a named expert.
A claim that does not survive fact-checking is removed from the page or rephrased to be defensible. We do not weaken cites by hedging language. If a claim is uncertain, we say so and explain why.
Banned terms and voice rules
Our voice rules are documented because the rules of the medium are part of the editorial product.
We do not use em-dashes, en-dashes, or double-hyphens used as em-dash substitutes. Punctuation is built from commas, periods, colons, semicolons, and parentheses. This is a zero-tolerance rule.
We do not use filler transitions of the “summary-adverb” type that add length without information. The banned list is maintained in our internal style guide and applied at validation; these words weaken paragraphs and signal nothing useful to the reader.
We do not use win-in-court framing or weaponization language. We do not publish “how to beat your ex” content. We do not write toward tactical advantage for one parent over the other.
We do not catastrophize, and we do not promise outcomes. The site teaches frameworks and points readers toward licensed professionals where decisions must be made.
Corrections policy
When we get something wrong, we fix it, and we are public about it.
Readers, reviewers, journalists, and other professionals can report errors via corrections@parentalalienationcenter.com or through the form at Contact. Every correction request is reviewed by the editorial team within five business days.
If we agree the page contains an error, we update the page, log the correction at our Corrections Log with the date and a brief description of what changed, and update the date-modified field on the page. The log is public.
If we disagree with a correction request, we respond to the requester with a brief explanation of why and why we are leaving the page as written. If the requester provides additional source material that changes our view, we revisit.
We do not silently change pages to obscure prior versions. Where a substantive change to a clinical or legal claim is made, the prior version is referenced in the corrections log so a reader who saved an older version can see what changed.
Conflicts of interest
The editorial team commits to the following on conflicts of interest.
Reviewers and contributors disclose any commercial relationships relevant to the topic of a page they are working on. A reviewer who has a financial relationship with a specific therapy program does not review pages that mention that program without disclosure. An attorney who represents clients in active parental-alienation litigation discloses that practice when reviewing related legal-context pages.
Where a disclosed conflict exists, it is rendered on the page along with the reviewer’s name and credentials. Readers see the conflict and can weigh the review accordingly.
The site itself does not have commercial relationships with attorneys, clinicians, coaching practices, expert-witness firms, training programs, or media outlets. Our editorial decisions are not affected by commercial interests because we have no commercial interests to be affected. The full funding model is at Funding Disclosure.
Newsletter and reader communications
Our newsletter is a fortnightly digest. We do not use urgency language, “limited time” framing, or marketing pressure. The subscription form is in the footer, opt-in, and unsubscribing is one click.
We do not send promotional content. We do not partner with sponsors. We do not send anything that would feel out of place if you were a clinician on our list.
We read every reader email. We respond to most within two business days and to press inquiries within one business day. We use reader feedback to improve content; we do not use reader feedback as testimonial content for marketing because we have no marketing.
How this policy can change
This editorial policy is itself a living document. We update it when our practice changes, when we identify gaps, or when reader and reviewer feedback surfaces issues with how we work. The current version of this policy is dated at the top of the page. The change history is available on request via corrections@parentalalienationcenter.com.
