Primary sources and secondary summaries
A primary document is closest to the event or decision being described; a summary interprets it.
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TOPIC COLLECTION · 8 GUIDES
Evidence and sources
Make each conclusion traceable to a source, with enough context to challenge it.
Source date versus check date
A document's publication date and the day you accessed it answer different questions.
Building a useful evidence timeline
A timeline should separate events from the dates on which they were reported.
Reading a regulatory notice
Begin with who issued the notice, who it names and what action it describes.
Claims, observations and conclusions
Label what someone says, what you directly observed and what you infer.
Handling conflicting sources
Start by checking whether the sources actually discuss the same entity, domain and time period.
Using archived webpages carefully
Archived pages can help reconstruct what a website displayed in the past.
How much evidence supports a conclusion
Match the strength of the wording to the evidence actually available.